


Foreshock

by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter, Angst, Child Death, Child Neglect, Dead Claudia Stilinski, Deaton is Beacon Hills number one dickbag, Eichen | Echo House, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gratuitous use of 90's song lyrics, Gun Violence, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mates, Spark Stiles Stilinski, The Hale Fire, but like just barely comfort, scott doesn't exist, small vomit warning about 2000 words in, tags to be updated as the fic is, the first chapter is a huge bummer but each subsequent chapter gets better, there is so little comfort in this first part my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-03-14 23:11:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13600443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somanyofthekids/pseuds/twothumbsandnostakeincanon
Summary: The day Stiles’ mom died, he almost leveled his house.Not on purpose. Not even by mistake, really. More by instinct.Since then he's dug his fingers into everything his has left, holding on with desperation.Desperation never stopped an earthquake.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning!! This is a huge fucking bummer. This chapter starts with the Stilinski's right after Claudia's death, is not a fix-it for the Hale Fire, and ends in what I feel is a gut punch moment. 
> 
> Stiles experiences child abuse through neglect, please take care of yourself if that's a trigger for you.
> 
> Once again, I've never actually watched Teen Wolf and have no idea what I'm doing here except that I'm enjoying it.
> 
> 'ight, let's proceed with the pain.

The day Stiles’ mom died, he almost leveled his house.

Not on purpose. Not even by mistake, really. More by instinct.

He had been alone in the hospital room with her when she flatlined. Honestly he doesn’t remember a lot of it. He assumes shock, trauma, and dissociation are to blame, and he’s fine with that. They’re not memories he really wants to have.

What happened after he got home, however… that, he remembers.

When they got back from the hospital, he went straight upstairs to his room and his dad went straight to the liquor cabinet. Stiles sat on his bed and stared into middle space as the room slowly got darker around him. He sat and wound tighter and tighter in silence, with nothing to distract him. _Mom’s dead, mom’s dead, mom’s dead_ , the words coming louder and louder in his head until there was room for nothing else. _Mom’s dead, mom’s dead, mom’s-_ a snowglobe fell off his shelf and shattered on the floor.

The whole house was shaking.

Things were shuddering off shelves and desks, and the lights were coming on and off, and there was pressure, so much pressure in the air around him that it felt like he might be squeezed into one tiny point. He distantly thought that maybe once that happened then everything would feel manageable.

He curled into a ball, waiting for the shaking to stop; fingers curled into his palms, fists made tighter and tighter until the nails pierced his skin. The sudden sharp pain gave way to a duller ache, and distracted him enough that he didn’t notice the quake slowing until it had already stopped.

Slowly, he uncurled from his position on the bed. Glancing out the window, he could see nothing unusual in the security lights of his dark backyard. Nothing had fallen over, not even the bird bath his mom had put in the garden two years ago. Distantly confused, yet still detached, he slowly went downstairs to ask his dad what had happened.

Pictures on the walls were knocked askew, trinkets from shelves had fallen and broken; there was no way on earth any of this had been quiet, and yet… there was the sheriff, passed out on the couch. Tear marks tracked down his face beneath puffy eyes, a knocked over glass and empty whiskey bottle on the floor next to him.

Stiles opened the front door, expecting to see his neighbors on the street, to see some evidence outside of what had happened, but he was mistaken. Everything was quiet. Everything was still. Everything else was exactly the same as it had been before his personal earthquake. It was only the inside rooms of his house that had been damaged.

Slowly, Stiles closed the door and moved back into the living room. He picked up the glass, put it in the sink, and began to straighten pictures.

 

__________

 

Alan Deaton stopped in the middle of signing his name to an order of nitrile gloves, gripping his pen hard. A _massive_ telluric shift had just occurred.

Shaken, he abandoned his work and moved to the map of Beacon Hills he kept under a table, gathering a few ingredients as he went. A short spell and some burned herbs later, all signs pointed to the Stilinski house. Home of the Sheriff, his sick wife, and their ten year old son as far as he knew. Alan absently tapped his finger on the map.

Nothing good could come of that much power, no matter the source.

The next afternoon he knocked on the Stilinski’s front door. There was a bit of a wait, and then a boy answered, talking before the door was even all the way open.

“If you’re here with another casserole, we don’t have any more room in our fridge. We haven’t scheduled the funeral yet, and if you want to offer condolences you’re better off leaving a voicemail for my dad on his phone because I probably won’t remember your name.”

The boy looked up at Deaton, dark circles under his eyes, looking tiredly defiant with his arms crossed as if he knew he was being rude but also couldn’t muster the energy to pretend otherwise.

Deaton paused, before evenly saying “I was very sorry to hear about your mother. Is your father not home?”

The boy, Stiles, Alan thought, looked carefully blank as he replied “Dad’s unavailable right now. Leave a message on his phone.” And then without warning, he shut the door in Deaton’s face.

He slowly walked back to his car, displeased with the short conversation. It was highly unlikely that a man in his 40’s had suddenly manifested magical abilities. It was much more likely that Alan had just spoken with the actual source of the telluric shift. And if his father was drowning too deeply in his grief to watch his son… Alan would have to watch him all the more closely.

 

__________

 

Stiles knew he was going crazy. He didn’t even question it. He _knew_ he was crazy, but he couldn’t figure out exactly what _type_ of crazy.

His first assumption had been frontotemporal dementia, like his mom, but his symptoms didn’t match. He didn’t have any problems with words, he wasn’t forgetting anything, he didn’t think he had any more antisocial behaviors than he’d already been born with. Schizophrenia, Peduncular Hallucinosis, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease didn’t fit.

He absolutely had to figure it out though, because he couldn’t tell his dad until he knew how to fix it. His dad was already... Stiles was doing his best to take care of him, but it was so hard, and if he brought another problem to the sheriff then he might completely break.

Not that Stiles didn’t feel close to that himself. He felt so close to breaking some days that he wondered why there weren’t visible cracks running through his skin. It was an awfully literalistic thing for him to think, and as he stirred dinner on the stove he wondered if that was another sign of his madness or just the creative license of ten year old.

 _“Shit!”_ he yelped as pain registered in his arm. He’d burned himself on the edge of the pan again, not quite tall enough to reach as far as he needed to. He wanted to use a chair at the stove, but his dad had yelled at him for standing on one last week.

Wasn’t safe, he said. Stiles could fall.

He turned the heat down to simmer and went to the tap to run the burn under cold water, hissing as it hit the damaged skin. The feeling of heat under his skin was grabbing his attention and taking up his entire focus. His mind began to fuzz, slipping away from him even as help tried to hold on to the present moment.

**_It burned. The fire was everywhere, pressing all around him. Something else burned his lungs, something almost chemical-like instead of simple all-consuming heat. Flames tore at the walls, eating the bones of the house, consuming everything. There was screaming in his ears, loud enough to be heard over the roar of the fire. Children’s screams, oh god-_ **

Stiles snapped back into his kitchen, water still running over his arm. The police cruiser was pulling into the driveway. Shit, double shit. Stiles shakily flung himself in the direction of the band-aids, and in his desperation to cover up the burn, he didn’t even care when he saw the box zoom straight into his hands.

As far as hallucinations go, flying band-aids were a hell of a lot nicer than watching people burn to death.

He slapped the bandage over the burn just in time for his dad to walk in the door… and then bypass the kitchen completely as he headed to the liquor cabinet.

Stiles took a moment to brace himself against the counter. The classic stressed-adult pose on his little pre-adolescent body should have been funny, but as it was, Stiles simply took a few deep breaths before going into the living room to coax his dad into eating something with his drink.

 

__________

 

The fire became a recurring hallucination.

Sometimes he saw it as a dream while he slept, other times he was ambushed in the middle of the day like he had at the sink. He saw it again and again, for weeks, until he had memorized everything that had been shown. However, it wasn’t until Stiles was waiting for the bus that he recognized one of the faces in his hallucination.

His classmate Cora Hale was in the parent pick up line next to the buses. Her… dad? Stiles thought it was probably her dad anyway, came and actually physically picked her up to swing her around before walking her to their car, obviously being chattered at by Cora.

Stiles was pretty sure the only other time he’d seen that man’s face was when it had been covered by charred skin.

But obviously Stiles must have seen him before right? His subconscious was just pulling from faces he’d glanced at in the past to use in the brain glitches that made up the hallucinations. That was how dreams worked right? Hallucinations were probably the same.

Stiles mentally shook himself and climbed on the bus, pulling out his homework to do on the way so that he’d have time to start laundry when he got home.

Over the next couple of weeks, Stiles did his best to catch glimpses of Cora’s family around town.

He recognized almost all of them from the hallucination.

Only two of them were unfamiliar: one of her older brothers and her older sister. Her oldest brother and baby brother were both imprinted in Stiles’ mind, faces twisted with burned skin and agony.

For the first time, Stiles considered the idea that he wasn’t crazy, and that he was having some kind of vision. What if he was like the Pre-Cogs from _Minority Report_? Was he seeing arson before it happened? Maybe he was a future-telling mutant like from X-Men- the next stage in human evolution. Maybe he’d been abducted by aliens as a baby and given some kind of foresight through a chip in his brain.

Maybe he was just crazy and experiencing hallucinations and trying to talk himself out of accepting it.

Maybe he should ask someone for help.

Oh god, he desperately wanted help.

But if he told anyone about it, they would tell his dad, and it would hurt him. There were already so many things hurting him.

Stiles could figure it out. He just needed to try harder.

 

__________

 

Alan Deaton didn’t fidget. Movements of the body revealed movements of the mind, and his mind was only his to know. So Alan Deaton didn’t fidget… but he wanted to.

Fidgeting might have been a way to release his increasing agitation. Since beginning to surveil the Stilinski home months ago, he’d noticed frequent bursts of magical energy. So frequent, in fact, that if he didn’t know better he would assume an entire coven of active witches lived there. But that wasn’t what was causing his agitation.

No, his agitation came from the fact that there were no visibly depleted resources. Stiles _had_ to be pulling the magic from _somewhere_. An untrained mage pulling energy from the earth would leave dead vegetation, pulling from animals would have left the bodies of sacrifices to be disposed of, and pulling energy from humans would have the same problem on a larger scale.

Alan was quickly coming to the edge of having to admit something he’d previously thought was just a myth: Stiles Stilinski might be a spark.

A _spark_.

An endless well of magical energy, limited only by his belief. There were stories of sparks who could take and restore life with a blink, sparks who could bend time, sparks who could interfere with fate.

It was the last that troubled Deaton the most. As a druid, it was his responsibility to maintain balance. Balance was kept by allowing fate to run her course. The thought of someone powerful enough to interfere with that filled him with cold fear.

  
But, it wouldn’t do to be hasty in his conclusions. There was still a chance that Stiles was sacrificing neighborhood cats, or _something,_ to give himself power. It wouldn’t be a _good_ thing, per se, but Deaton would take a dark witch over a mythical being of pure power any day.

 

__________

 

**_Two women held their daughters, curled protectively around them with their backs to the fire, looking each other in the eye. One nodded, trembling._ **

**_“Sh, shh baby, it’s going to be fine, it’s going to be okay soon. I love you, I love you, I love you-”_ **

**_The crack was audible over the rage of the fire._ **

**_Her wife kissed their other daughter’s head, nuzzling into her hair, and snapped her neck as well._ **

**_The mothers clutched their babies and each other, sinking down onto the floor made up of flames, tears evaporating even as they appeared-_ **

 

Stiles’ knee came down on his front lawn. He lunged for the bushes and threw up the lunch he’d packed for himself and eaten on the bus home, since he’d slept through lunch at school.

Once his stomach was empty, he sat back on his heels and wiped his face. He breathed through his disorientation. The bus had already pulled away from the stop, so he’d been hallucinating on his front lawn for at least five minutes.

He gathered his energy, trying to get himself up and into the house. He looked up and froze. His neighbor was across the street in his yard, staring at Stiles with concern, and Stiles was tired. He was so tired. He tried, he really did, because what if the neighbor said something to someone; but he just couldn’t muster the energy to smile or wave at his neighbor, so he simply looked away and went inside his house.

He dropped his backpack on the kitchen floor and sat at the table. There was laundry to fold, the bathroom needed to be cleaned, and if he didn’t make something for dinner then his dad wouldn’t eat.

But he was so tired. All he wanted to do was curl up under his mom’s arm and fall asleep. It was such a small and impossible thing to want.

But Stiles was a problem solver. And he couldn’t have his mom (would never have her again), so he reached for the next best thing: photos. He blinked and the table was covered with every photo of his mom that they owned.

He didn’t remember going to get them all, but he must have, right?

More than willing to not think about it, he reached for the nearest photograph and stared at his mom’s face. He looked at picture after picture, remembering when they were taken or the stories of when they were taken. He was so deeply wrapped in comforting memories that he lost track of time, didn’t even hear when the front door unlocked and opened.

When he finally did hear it, his dad was walking into the kitchen, and he shot up out of his chair.

“Dad! Sorry, I haven’t started dinner yet-” Stiles started to babble. The sheriff stared past him at the kitchen table. He stumbled into the seat Stiles had just vacated and picked up a picture of he and his wife. Stiles stood in silence, unsure if he was in trouble for forgetting dinner or not. He’d never gotten in trouble for not making it before, but if his dad was maybe finally noticing things like meals-

John Stilinski burst into tears. Great, ugly sobs.

“Dad… I just…” John continued to cry as if his son wasn’t there. The sounds were making Stiles start to panic. This was his only parent, his only family member, and he _couldn’t fix it._ He didn’t know how. There were great bloody chunks of them that had been torn out with Claudia’s death. How do you even begin to heal that?

The only thing he could think was that the pictures on the table had immediately preceeded this particular episode, so they had to go. He quickly started gathering them, saying “I’m so sorry, we don’t have to- I’m sorry dad, I’ll put these back-” He scooped all of the pictures up except for the one his dad was holding, and hurried upstairs to tuck them in his closet. He slammed the door shut, as if he could lock all his problems behind it, and slid down the wall next to it to sit on the floor.

He shut his eyes tightly, pressure building in his head. He could still hear his dad sobbing up here. He rocked forward and up on his feet before hurrying into the bathroom, shutting the door, grabbing the cleaning supplies and cranking the radio.

An hour later, the bathroom had been deep cleaned in a way it hadn’t seen since before his mom got sick. Stiles had even sacrificed his old toothbrush to scrub the grout between the tiles. He felt filthy after he was done, so he took advantage of the sparklingly clean shower and cleaned himself too.

When he opened the bathroom door an hour and a half after shutting it, the house was silent. He crept downstairs, to see his father in his now familiar position on the couch: passed out, empty glass, puffy red eyes.

Instead of cleaning up around him, Stiles slowly dropped down on the couch next to his dad and leaned on him.

Stiles wasn’t upset with his dad for crying. The school counselor had talked at him after his mom’s death and he’d read about the stages of grief.  He knew that crying was necessary and important when someone died.

But Stiles wished that he could cry _with_ his dad. A week after the funeral, his dad had walked in on Stiles crying on the couch. He had immediately started crying himself and then left. He hadn’t come back out that night. The pattern continued for weeks, until Stiles made sure he didn’t cry anywhere his dad might see, so that he would stay.

Stiles knew this wasn’t how parents were supposed to act. This wasn’t how _his dad_ acted, until 5 months ago. His dad knew how to be a parent, and Stiles kept hope that if he could just take care of his dad long enough for him to get back on his feet, his dad would remember and go back to being a parent.

There were even brief moments where Stiles thought he could see his dad coming back, like when he had scolded Stiles for standing at the stove with a chair.

But Stiles was getting so tired. Whatever psychosis he had was getting more and more persistent. He would be woken up in the middle of the night by the fire, and could never fall back asleep. It preyed on his mind insistently.

He was sure he recognized at least half the faces in the fire now, all of them from the Hale family. There were moments when the fire felt so _real_.

Stiles felt himself start to drift to sleep next to dad. He wanted a safe nap under his mother’s arm, but sleeping next to his passed out dad was what he had, so he would take it.

 

He woke up alone.

 

__________

 

_“Stiles!”_

He startled out of the fire in his mind and back into the classroom at the yell of his teacher. He sucked in a tight breath as he realized he’d torn open his hand with the safety scissors. Jesus, how hard had he been squeezing the handle to cut through skin with safety scissors?

He sat in a daze in the nurse's office as she cleaned the blood and wrapped his hand. She didn’t even bother saying anything to him about being careful, he was in here so often these days. Stiles thought she probably considered him attention needy or desperate to get out of class. Stiles also thought neither of those assumptions were particularly wrong, but that wasn’t why he kept ending up in the nurse’s office.

Yesterday, it had been a ball to the head during P.E. while he watched the Hale family slam into walls that were on fire. Three days ago he had fallen off a bench during recess because he’d fallen asleep while sitting. Last week he had shown up to school with another fresh sear on his skin from trying to make eggs for breakfast, only to be startled when a spatula appeared in his hand.

It had been a month since he’d fallen asleep next to his dad on the couch, and he had only gotten more tired since then. All of his energy was going toward staying awake and taking care of his dad.

Even so, when Stiles overheard (or more accurately eavesdropped on) Cora saying something about a family reunion at the park on Saturday, Stiles knew he’d be going. He didn't want to. He wanted to stay home and find some way to sleep without nightmares, but a part of him knew that wouldn’t happen until he’d somehow resolved the hallucination of the Hales.

 

__________

 

From a distance, Alan Deaton could see the magic wielding child was exhausted. He had continued to watch him, hoping that he would simply tire himself out of magic soon. He had to be getting close, considering how he looked, which is why it was so surprising to see him at the park, hovering on the edge of a pack gathering.

Deaton didn’t approach him, but watched all the same.

Stiles stood just outside of the pavilion where the Hales were meeting. He recognized these people. _Every single one of them_. Even the ones from outside Beacon Hills, faces he was sure he’d never even seen in passing. He’d seen each of them in their final moments before death, a hundred times over. How could he be hallucinating the faces of people he’d never seen?

Stiles felt cold as he stared at the people. He felt freezing in fact, but he didn’t feel Deaton’s eyes watching him, or the eyes of another member of the Hale party.

“Are you looking for someone?” asked a voice.

Stiles didn’t have enough energy to startle, so he simply looked up at the man addressing him.

Peter Hale inspected the kid in front of him. He’d been away starting his post-graduate work, so he wasn’t completely up on everyone in touch with the pack. But he looked about Cora’s age, maybe he was looking for her? He didn’t look healthy enough to be playing out here, though. He was abnormally pale, with dark circles under his eyes and too many band-aids stuck here and there all over him.

Stiles looked at the man speaking to him, and suddenly realized, _here is a Hale he didn’t recognize_. Maybe it was something about that realization, maybe Stiles had simply reached the end of his tether- either way he opened his mouth and words came tumbling out.

“Your family is going to die in a fire.”

The man blanched, but Stiles’ mouth continued without his permission. “Your house is going to light on fire, and no one will be able to get out, and the adults will have to snap the necks of the babies, and everyone is going to die.”

Stiles felt completely detached from himself. He supposed this was it. Whatever his problem was, whether it was a type of psychosis or if he had genuinely turned into a character from an awful fantasy movie, this was the tipping point where everything went to shit.

The man cleared his throat. “You seem very sure of this. What was your name?”

“Stiles Stilinski,” Stiles answered on auto pilot.

“Peter Hale,” the man responded, sticking out his hand. Stiles had just told him that his whole family was going to die a horrific death, and now they were shaking hands. Stiles felt himself detach further from the situation.

Peter mused as he realized this kid was the sheriff’s son. He looked over the cuts and bruises and wondered if he was being abused. Was this story a way to get someone to look closer at him without actually saying what was going on? He opened his mouth to ask where his dad was, when Deaton came over.

“Stiles? Does your father know you’re here?” Deaton asked with obvious concern on his brow.

Stiles shrugged.

Peter’s lips thinned. His instincts were immediately suspicious of this whole situation, but couldn’t tell exactly where his suspicion lie.  

“Why don’t I take you home, Stiles?” gently suggested Deaton.

Stiles shrugged again.

“I think I’ll come too,” said Peter. Not only would it get him away from tedious pack politics, but he wanted to a closer look at the situation for himself. He felt strangely protective of the boy, almost like a misplaced pack instinct. He supposed it was because he was the same age as his niece, and the idea of someone abusing or neglecting her made him see red.

Deaton frowned at the announcement, though he didn’t say anything. Peter noticed.

As Stiles was steered toward the exit, his mind showed him a brief vignette of himself in scrubs, strapped to a bed in a sterile room by himself. The silence in the room was oppressive. Vision-him stared into nothing, and he breathed. Then the scene was gone from his mind as quickly as it arrived.

A few minutes later, the three of them arrived at the Stilinski home, police cruiser parked in the driveway. Deaton raised his hand to knock but Stiles just opened the door and walked in. Peter and Deaton followed, entering a darkened living room.

The sheriff sat on the couch with a glass in his hand; something amber and potent smelling sloshed around in it. The bleary eyed sheriff looked up at the people intruding on his grief, and said “Stiles? I thought you were upstairs? What are you doing with the vet?”

“I found young Mr. Stilinski here are the park, chatting with Peter,” Deaton indicated him with his head. “He had some interesting things to say.”

Peter looked sharply at Deaton. If the kid was being abused, then telling his dad he’d been lying was hardly going to make the situation better.

“Stiles?” The sheriff looked confused.

Stiles was still completely detached from the situation. Nothing about it felt real, so he told his dad what he’d said to Peter. His father had never looked so shocked.

“What?? Why- Stiles, _why_ would you say that??” he asked, flabbergasted despite the alcohol in his system.

“Because I saw it.”

  
What followed was the worst afternoon of Stiles’ life. Worse than finding out his mother was sick, worse than actually losing her. What followed lit the fuse that destroyed _everything_.

 

__________

 

When Deaton heard what Stiles was telling Peter, his blood chilled.

The boy was having _visions_. Visions of the future.

He was a spark, and he was interfering with fate.

His observation period was up; something had to be done. He texted his sister before going over to the boy.

“Stiles? Does your father know you’re here?”

The closer Deaton looked, the more he realized that Stiles wasn’t displaying symptoms of magical exhaustion, simply regular, human, not-sleeping-enough exhaustion. Whatever was wrong with him, it wasn’t his pull on magic.

But maybe he could use it to get the child contained. If this was the first time Stiles had told someone what he was seeing, then clearly he was already having doubts about himself.

When Peter announced he would accompany them to Stiles’ father, Deaton had to hide his irritation. Of all the Hale pack members, Peter was not the one he would have chosen to bring with him. Peter was too perceptive, too suspicious. Deaton would have to be more careful than he would have if his audience were just a child and a drunk.

Once they arrived at the Stilinski home, it was easier than he expected to get Stiles to tell his dad what he’d been seeing. He had obviously reached his breaking point. Honestly, Deaton was impressed he’d lasted this long. Looking at the 4’8” tall dust-line around the room, it seemed as if the ten year old had been taking care of a lot of things.

Including the man on the couch.

Add a sudden dive into the world of the supernatural without being aware that the supernatural exists, and the recent death of his mother… yes, it was very impressive that Stiles Stilinski had been keeping this up for over six months.

That kind of strength made it imperative that the fledgling spark be locked up as soon as possible. Deaton couldn’t even imagine the kind of havoc he might wreak on the path of fate if he were determined.

He watched the sheriff pace the floor after Stiles had admitted to watching a family burn to death in his mind for 6 months. “Sheriff, if I may, my sister is a licensed mental health worker. I have no doubt she’d love to come talk to Stiles. She might have some suggestions to help.” The sheriff looked at Deaton as if he were drowning and Deaton had just thrown him the only life preserver in the entire world.

“Please. Please call her,” he said, voice thick with unshed tears. His eyes kept darting to and away from his son sitting on the couch, as if he couldn’t stand to see the results of his failure to handle fatherhood.

Stiles, for his moment, was still dissociating. At least, he thought that’s what this is called. He’s at least 60% sure this isn’t real, but thought he should probably stay here just in case he’s wrong about that. Cora’s uncle, Peter, was sitting next to him on the couch. He hadn’t said a word since Stiles had finished talking. He was obviously watching Stiles, but Stiles wasn’t looking at him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter’s hand moving toward him, but he did nothing to stop it. When the hand landed lightly on his back, he shuddered. He abruptly realized it had been over six months since he’d been hugged. Why did that suddenly matter to him?

Peter’s hand slowly moved in calming circles across his shoulders before coming up to lightly grip the bare skin of his neck, and Stiles practically melted. He felt calm for the first time in almost a year. The sheriff and Deaton spoke above him, but it didn’t matter what they were saying.

Quietly, so quietly it could have been dismissed as his imagination, Peter asked “Who exactly did you see burning in the fire, Stiles?”

Without thinking about it, Stiles replied “Talia, Joseph, Matthew, Brayden, Cora’s Aunts Evangeline and Rachel and their twin girls, the one redhead that bags groceries at Safeway, I think he’s a second cousin or something, and everyone else who lives out of town and were at the park today. Not you, or Derek or Laura. Or Cora.”

Peter shivered at the extensive list, but very deliberately didn’t break pace with his back rub. This kid was clearly touch starved. He was more and more incensed with the sheriff with every minute he spent here.

As Stiles had explained what he’d been going through since his mother died, Peter couldn’t believe the amount of neglect that must have happened in order for the sheriff to not notice anything. It was as if his wife had died and the sheriff had immediately forgotten he had a son. A son who was clearly doing his best to care for himself and his dad.

The amount of emotional distress Stiles had been under must have been extreme. While supernatural gifts usually developed with puberty, there had been plenty of documented cases where they were presented early under severe circumstances. Peter wondered if perhaps this was one of those cases.

“Has anything odd happened besides the visions of the fire?” he asked, quietly again.

Stiles nodded, just barely, as his eyes drifted shut under the comforting touch. “Sometimes it seems like things just appear in front of me when I need them. Obviously I must have gotten them, but I don’t remember it. And then there was the earthquake.”

Peter’s hand paused and Stiles let out an involuntary whine. Peter immediately continued moving and asked carefully, “Earthquake?”

“The day mom died. I felt an earthquake, except there wasn’t one. Or it was just in our house? The pictures were all knocked off. A snowglobe fell and broke too. But there wasn’t an earthquake anywhere else, just in our house.” He yawned. “Dad slept through it.”

Stiles was slumping to the side, unable to fight sleep. Peter gently laid him on the couch before standing.

“Alan? Could I speak with you outside for a moment?” Peter gave the sheriff a cold smile before exiting out the front door. He stood on the porch so that he could see Stiles on the couch through the front window and waited for the emissary to join him.

Deaton shook his head as he exited the house, sighing.

“It’s such a shame. They’ve already been through so much, and now this…” he said.

“I’m not sure it’s a psychological condition. What if these have been genuine precognitive events?” said Peter.

“Peter, any stories of people who get visions like that are just myths. There aren’t any documented cases of it,” said Deaton.

“Myths always have a root in history. Just because it’s uncommon doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” Something was tickling at Peter’s memory… something he’d read maybe. “He’s been through a huge emotional trauma, supernatural gifts have been known to manifest under such circumstances-”

“Psychosis had been known to manifest under the same circumstances,” said Deaton patiently.

“Did you hear him talking about things appearing?” insisted Peter. “He said when he needs something, it just appears in front of him and he doesn’t remember going to get it.”

“Blank spots in memory are also very common with severe mental distress, Peter.”

Peter didn’t know why Deaton was being to obstinate about this. It felt _wrong_.

A sedan pulled into the driveway behind the cruiser, and Deaton’s sister Marin got out. She nodded at them both briefly before heading directly into the house.

Peter was frustrated. He wanted to stay and hear the conversation between Marin and Stiles, but he knew he wouldn’t convince anyone of anything without more proof. He needed to research. It didn’t matter to him that he was clearly over-invested in someone he’d just met this afternoon. All that mattered was convincing others of his theory so Stiles could get the right kind of help; possibly even remove him into the home of someone better suited for his care.

He would need to be quick though, if he wanted to spend time researching in the vaults and still make it back to the house in time for the moon rise. With a little bit of luck, he could find the evidence he needed, present it to Talia tonight, and be back here tomorrow morning for Stiles.

He nodded curtly at Deaton, and left.

The Stilinski home wouldn’t see Peter Hale again.

 

__________

 

“In-patient care offers a better opportunity for fine tuning medication. 24 hour observation is often needed for initial dosing of antipsychotics. He’ll be safe until we find the right medication and dosage, and then he can come right home. Eichen House has some of the country’s best doctors who specialize in schizophrenia,” Marin said, looking on John’s devastated expression.

“I don’t have schizophrenia,” interrupted Stiles. “I don’t have any of the negative symptoms, I don’t even have any of the positive symptoms except hallucinations-” he stopped speaking abruptly as he saw the agonized look on his father’s face.

His dissociation had receded after his nap on the couch, and now he was horribly present.

“Stiles, I know I’ve- I’ve failed you miserably-” John said.

“Dad, no-” whispered Stiles, unable to make the lie louder.

“-I have, but- but I’m going to fix it,” John said determinedly. “I’m going to get you help, and if Eichen House is the best place for that-”

“The best place for me is with _you!”_ Stiles was about to cry. He was going to lose his father, oh my god, he had _seen_ this, he was going to end up in his vision, that’s exactly what these were, _visions-_

Stiles began hyperventilating, unable to handle everything that was happening. He wasn’t going to leave his dad, he wasn’t. He wasn’t. He- felt a prick, and saw a needle.

“Shh, shh, it’s just a mild sedative,” Deaton said soothingly. “You just need to calm down, Stiles.”

Stiles had enough time to wonder why a vet would carry around sedatives for a human before he passed out.

 

__________

 

He’d found it. Peter had spent longer than he should have searching through the books, but he’d found it.

It was the journal of a 15th century spark. A first person account of the same things Stiles had been experiencing.

Stiles was a spark.

Stiles was a spark, and he was _exceptional._

He was running late, so he called Deaton on the way to the house.

“Hello Peter.”

“Deaton, are you still with the Stilinski’s?”

“Marin and I have just gotten Stiles settled into Eichen House.”

Peter’s mind blanked. He nearly rear ended the truck in front of him because he was so stunned by Deaton’s words.

“You what?”

“It’s the best and closest place to be treated for childhood schizophrenia-”

“He doesn’t have _schizophrenia!_ He’s a SPARK!” Peter yelled into the phone. There was silence on the other end.

“You knew,” said Peter, stunned. “You knew he’s a spark, and you had him locked up.”

“There are things you don’t understand, Peter-”

“Don’t give me that bullshit Deaton. You might have everyone else convinced that you’re above petty things like jealousy and fear, but I know better. I know better, and I’m going to make sure everyone else knows too by the end of the night.” Peter hung up, furious. He was nearly to the house, so enraged by the actions of the pack emissary that he didn’t notice the smell of smoke until he was already in view of the house.

As he threw himself at the line of mountain ash, the flames eating his clothes, he thought that he really should have expected this.

After all, Stiles had proved himself exceptional already. There was no way he was going to be wrong about something he’d predicted for six months.

 

__________

 

Stiles woke up strapped to a bed.

 

He didn’t struggle. He didn’t scream. He’d seen this. He knew where he was.

 

He stared into nothing, and he breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The working title for this was "don't ffffffffucking do it" but I fuckening did it anyway.
> 
> I have a couple more chapters of this written, but I don't know how I feel about it? The next chapter starts 7 years past the end of this one, and each subsequent chapter is a little less of a bummer than the one before. I imagine a happy ending probably, because like hell am I going to put in Real Effort just to make myself cry.
> 
> Anyway, if anyone is interested in reading more then I'll try to write an ending and clean it up to post, but otherwise it'll probably just live as a monument to my half-assedness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a l r i g h t. 
> 
> I guess I'm doing this? I haven't completely finished the ending, but I think I know where it's going to go, so here, let's have a less depressing chapter that ends on a hopeful note instead of an "oh god why" note. We're going to give this fucker a Picardy third. 
> 
> Also I can't give you any kind of posting schedule, but it'll probably be like 20k words? Four chapters? Maybe? I don't know what I'm doing. Roll with me.

SEVEN YEARS LATER

 

Stiles’ head lifted from his pillow as he heard the unsteady growls. Must be another “patient,” then. The growls got louder, and then came a slurred yell of “DEATON!”

There wasn’t much that consistently captured Stiles’ attention these days, but that name was one thing that did.

He got off his bed and drifted to his door, waving it open as he strayed into the hallway. The guards were hefting a weakly struggling half-shifted werewolf between them, hauling him into the only other room on the ward. It had been empty for almost a year.

The last resident of that room was a siren who had gone in for a mandatory “tubal ligation.” She’d died of “complications.” Stiles used a lot of mental quotation marks when he thought about “patient care” at Eichen House.

Stiles watched silently as the guards dumped the werewolf on a bed and immediately booked it out of the cell, locking it thoroughly.

“Stiles,” said one of the guards exasperatedly, “Go back to your room.”

Stiles shrugged noncommittally and continued staring at the new werewolf through the small window.

The guard rolled his eyes and muttered something about pay grades, before marching to the end of the hall with his coworker and offering the blood token to pass through the door there.

Stiles stared, and he breathed. The two activities took up a lot of his time when he was struggling to stay present. He’d been trapped in visions for most of the morning, unable to drag himself back completely. He stared at the were’, and then waved his door open too.

He silently walked in and stood next to the bed, looking down.

“I’ve met you. Have you met me?” he asked.

The werewolf rolled his head to the side to look up. The pupils were different sizes in his bright red eyes. They seemed to have trouble focusing.

“If you’ve met me... it would stand to reason... that I’ve met you too,” he replied, taking time to snark despite the obvious effort it took.

Stiles’ head tilted. “Not always. I’ve met a lot of people, but they haven’t always met me. I’ve seen a lot of events, but not all of them have happened. They will, though. I think all of them will.”

The werewolf’s eyes closed and he went lax. Whether he had decided the conversation wasn’t worth the effort, or he had simply fainted, Stiles didn’t know. He supposed it didn’t matter. He wandered back out of the room, not bothering to close the door behind him.

 

__________

 

When Peter woke later, it took longer than usual to shake off the disorientation. He was surrounded by sterile, impersonal walls, but not the sterile, impersonal walls he was used to-

Oh.

Now he remembered.

He remembered slowly waking from the coma. Grasping onto the ragged ends of severed pack bonds. Feeling his burned cells regenerate over _years_. Thoughts twisting, turning, fixating on revenge. Being set loose by his nurse. Arguing with Laura… killing her. The overwhelming rage and power that ensued.

He had killed the closest thing he had to an Alpha- and his niece. Almost more of a sister, really. She was only five years younger than him.

She was _only five years younger_ , which left no excuse for her abandonment when Peter _never_ would have left her behind. He still felt the burning grief that had come when she’d refused to hear him, even after leaving him without a pack and protection. Why hadn’t she sought revenge for their family? Why hadn’t she ensured this would happen to no one else? Why, why, why- the why’s were soaked in the blood of the entire Hale pack; as the rage and madness took over, so were Peter’s claws.

A mix of rage, fresh and stale grief, and confusion led him to crawl back into his hospital bed to sleep off the worst of the nights’ trauma before enacting his plan for revenge.

Unfortunately, someone had been watching. Deaton had clearly had an eye on him, because within 8 hours of killing his niece he’d been struck and drugged while sleeping and brought to Eichen House. Deaton had greeted them there, a look of artificial sorrow on his face.

He’d shaken his head and murmured “Poor Laura,” before beckoning them in over Peter’s snarls.

When Peter escaped, Deaton would be the first to suffer.

Suddenly he remembered the kid. In his late teens, probably. Wandering into Peter’s cell like it was his house. What the fuck.

Peter sat up from his bed, noticing that he seemed to be settling into his Alpha status. He felt more calm than he had since… well, since the fire. Ironic, considering his circumstances. He took a look around his cell.

His door was open. His door was open?

He cautiously walked up to the door, convinced that this had to be some kind of trick. The heavy lock and mountain ash infused slab certainly indicated that the door was meant to hold him in. He carefully used one finger to open the door wider and peer into the hall. There was a door at the end of the hallway, with no window or handle, and then another door just like his across the hall and down to the right.

He guardedly walked to the end of the hall and looked closely at the door. At first glance it looked like someone had just wedged a rectangle of wood into the wall, but Peter could see runes carved into the edge of the door. The ones for blood tokens were the most obvious, but there were also magical repellants, and some he didn’t even recognize. Peter sighed, disgusted. Escape would be… difficult.

Done with that door for the moment, he slowly walked back up the hall, pausing just in front of the last door in the corridor. This door was also unlocked, and wide open.

The kid sat cross legged on the bed, leaning against the wall, staring at the opposite wall. No movement except breathing.

Peter cleared his throat.

He didn’t stop looking at the wall, but said clearly and casually, “Come in. If I wanted you out I would have just locked my door. Or yours.”

Peter stepped inside, staying close to the door. Stiles continued staring at the wall for another moment, before blinking and slouching further against the wall.

“That election is going to be such a shitshow,” he muttered, apparently to himself. He looked over at Peter. “Have you met me?”

Peter remembered the strange question from before he’d lost consciousness. He frowned, looking closer at him. The pale, mole dotted skin, amber eyes… he nearly startled as he remembered who he was.

“You’re Stiles,” he said. “We met at the park. You told me my family was going to die,” he paused. “You were right.”

“I’m right a lot,” he said unnervingly. “You’re Peter, right?”

Stiles had had almost a day while Peter was passed out to think about whether he’d met him in a vision or the present, and he was almost 90% sure he’d actually physically met him… maybe 85%. He was at least 70% sure he’d met Peter not-in-a-vision.

He just hadn’t been sure where or when until Peter mentioned the fire just now.

Stiles’ eyes locked onto Peter’s face, intent. “You were with Deaton before he brought me here.”

Peter’s eyebrow rose, hearing the question behind the statement. He looked critically at Stiles again. He was… taller, than Peter’s memory. Of course he was, but for some reason Peter was getting hung up on it now. He supposed seven years will do that to an adolescent. He forced his eyes to seek out some evidence of the spark housed in him.

The cuts and bruises he had been covered in when they met were gone. The circles under his eyes were still there. But really, as cliché as it sounds, his eyes themselves held the biggest difference.

As a child, they’d been filled with fear. When he’d walked in a few minutes ago, they’d been hazy; staring into one spot, but obviously seeing something Peter was unable to. Now, they were sharp. The kind of sharp that is constantly whetted, ready to pierce at any moment.

Peter remembered the strange connection he’d felt with Stiles seven years ago. He still felt the same tug.

Peter had always been one to follow his instincts.

“Deaton was our pack’s emissary. He was at the gathering when you told me what would happen. He must have had an eye on you or overheard what you said, because he interrupted us right after,” Peter paused, wondering if it would be tactful to bring up the next part. Oh well. “I thought you were being abused, and telling a lie to get someone to look into your home life. When Deaton offered to take you home, I decided to come as well to look into it.”

While he normally shied away from the memory, Stiles forced himself to think back to that horrible afternoon. Peter had been the only one to ask him questions. He always found it hard to remember specifics about dissociative episodes, but he was pretty sure that Peter had rubbed his back and asked him about his visions.

“After hearing what you had to say,” Peter continued, “it didn’t feel right. It felt like something else was going on, so I left. I did some research and found out what you are, but by then Deaton had already had you committed. I drove home to get help, and found it in flames.” Peter seems to have forgotten he’s talking to Stiles now, trapped in his memory. “I tried to get in past the line of mountain ash, but I couldn't. The fire had no problem getting past it though.” He went silent.

“You found out what I am?” asked Stiles, voice suddenly shaky.

Peter focused on Stiles again. “Yes… do you not know?” The kid had known about werewolves. Peter just assumed-

“I’m know I’m some kind of magic-something,” he answered waspishly, trying to cover up how insecure he felt about not knowing. “They’re not exactly throwing me supernatural educational resources in here, and the only people I ever see are the guards and whoever is staying in that room,” Stiles nodded across the hall.

Something was very wrong with that sentence, and Peter slowly realized something he should have noticed at the beginning.

“Stiles, where’s your father?” Peter asked quietly.

Stiles’ face shut down.

“Stiles-” Peter tried to coax.

“He’s in the dirt, right next to your entire family,” said Stiles sharply. “Go back to your room.”

“Stiles,” he tried again.

 _“Leave.”_ Stiles said it, and Peter felt a force grab him by the back of his neck and drag him out of Stiles’ room. The door swung shut and locked behind him, Stiles having never left the bed.

Peter stared at the door, speechless.

Oh yes, he was definitely a spark.

 

__________

 

Left to himself, Peter went back to study the door at the end of the hall until he grew too tired, and then returned to his bed. He left his door wide open, not wanting to risk it locking on its own.

He awoke to a tray of cold food on the floor. He looked over the bowl of… something, and then picked it up and took it down to Stiles’ room.

“Care to join me for breakfast? The chef has provided a lovely bowl of grey. I suspect Cordon Bleu training,” Peter asked through the closed door.

“I already ate,” came the short reply.

Peter sighed. “Stiles, I’m sorry I upset you. But don’t you think we ought to keep each other company? Maybe together we can find a way out of here.”

He heard a loud snort from inside the room.

“Don’t be so negative,” he said. “I know you’ve been here a long time, but I know quite a bit about magic-”

Another snort interrupted him.

“What makes you think I can’t escape by myself?” Stiles said.

That brought Peter up short.

“Stiles, open the door,” he said sharply. Surprisingly, the door creaked open.

Peter entered to see Stiles laid flat on the bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. His eyes were unfocused, but not hazy the way they’d been at the beginning of Peter’s first visit.

“You can get out?” Peter demanded.

Stiles shrugged. “Maybe. I did it a few times. I was in a different part of the building then, though. Haven’t since I was thirteen.”

“Why in god’s name are you still here?” Peter was dumbfounded.

“Like I said; my dad’s in the ground. He’s dead. I don’t have anyone else.”

Peter’s mouth gaped. “And you would still give up freedom? The possibility of new friendships? Hell, you’d give up eating something better than this?” He gestured sharply to the goop masquerading as food.

Stiles reluctantly looked over at Peter, but didn’t sit up. It bothered Stiles how much he cared about Peter’s opinion. He’d had companions in this prison before, but he’d never latched on this quickly before.

He told himself it was just because he’d known him before, however briefly.

He only half believed it.

He looked back at the ceiling and said “Sit down and eat your food.”

Peter’s eyes flashed red. “You are not about to tell me what to-”

“Sit down, eat your stupid bowl of mush, and I’ll explain some shit,” Stiles said blandly.

Peter’s instincts still rebelled against obeying a command by this insolent little snot, but his desire for information prevailed against (admittedly childish) desire to prove who was the Alpha in this room.

Once Peter was sitting on the single folding chair at the tiny card table (and why did Stiles get one of these when his cell didn’t?) Stiles began talking.

“The last time I broke out of here, I was 13. I’d broken out a few times before, only to be brought back by my dad. He was sure I was having paranoid delusions, part of schizophrenia, y’know. But he didn’t… he didn’t come to see me that often. I look like my mom, and I think when he saw me he could only think about how disappointed she’d be that he hadn’t been able to ‘fix’ me yet, and… it was hard for him. But it was hard for me too, and sometimes I just _had_ to see him. I had to know he was surviving, so I’d just leave. And then I’d get home, and my dad would look heartbroken, and he’d try to explain again that the healthiest place for me was Eichen House, and he’d bring me back here.”

Stiles took a deep breath. Peter listened intently.

“So the last time, I’d gotten out and walked home, like always. But my dad was already there. Usually I had to wait a while for him to come home from the station… he worked a lot. But this time he’d brought work home with him.”

“He had the case file from the Hale house fire spread out over the whole living room.” Peter jolted a bit. Stiles ignored him. “He was frenetic, pacing and making calls. He didn’t take me back immediately like all the times before. He sat me down and explained that he thought he’d discovered something huge. That your house fire had been arson, and the same arsonists had burned down dozens of other homes across the US. He didn’t have enough proof to bring to the feds or make a case yet, though. He was worried. He thought he was being followed. He worried that if he took me back to Eichen, they’d go and kidnap me from there or something, so he wanted to keep me somewhere he could personally protect me.” Stiles sighed. “The only part that mattered to me was that he was going to let me stay _home,_ even if it was just for a little while. I went to sleep in my own bed that night for the first time in three years, and I was _so happy.”_

Stiles sat up and swung his leg off the bed, bouncing his toes on the floor.

“I woke up to someone grabbing me and then screaming. Turns out that my- my magic-whatever, comes with a built in defense mechanism. People who want to hurt me can’t touch me. Or they can, but they get electrocuted for it. So this blonde lady was convulsing on my bedroom floor, and I yelled. My dad came running in, and right behind him was an old man with a gun. He shot him, and the back of my dad’s head blew off.”

Stiles heard Peter take a sharp breath, but he barrelled on, unable to stop now. He stood up to pace as he talked.

“I think I went into shock then. I remember the old man tried to shoot me too but the gun malfunctioned, or probably my magic-whatever fucked it up. Then he tried to grab me and I electrocuted him too. The lady woke up and tried to drag him out, but he was too heavy. She kept yelling at me, asking what I did. Someone must have called the cops when they heard the gunshot, and as soon as she heard sirens she was out of there. And then I killed the old man.”

Stiles halted abruptly and turned to look Peter in the face.

“I didn’t even have to try. I just looked at him and thought ‘stop breathing’. And he did.”

Stiles was clearly looking for Peter’s judgement in his face, and Peter was determined that he find none. After all, his entire purpose in breaking out of here was to enact the same kind of revenge Stiles had already gotten.

Eventually Stiles looked away and began pacing again, more slowly. “When the ambulance arrived, I was taken to the hospital and treated for shock while they took my statement, and then they took me back to Eichen House. I’ve been here ever since.”

“That still doesn’t answer the question of why you’re still here,” said Peter quietly.

Stiles scoffed. “Weren’t you listening? I electrocute people without even consciously _thinking_ about it. And I killed someone. I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it. I’d do it to him again in a heartbeat. But I know myself, okay? Even back then I’d already had three fucking years of quiet self reflection, and I know I have a temper. What if someone pushes me out of the way in the deli aisle and I electrocute them? What if a kid accidentally runs over my foot and breaks my toe? Will my magic lash out and murder a child? I don’t know, Peter. I genuinely don't know.”

Peter was quiet as he thought about it. Stiles continued pacing until he seemed to wear himself out and collapsed back on the bed.

“You said you ‘electrocute people’, not ‘electrocuted two people’. Who else did you electrocute?” Peter asked eventually.

Stiles waved a hand ambiguously. “A few weeks after my dad was murdered, some doctors came down here and tried to take me for tests. I electrocuted anyone who touched me. They tried to gas me and I created a clean air bubble for myself. One of them just tried to observe me for a month and one morning he woke up blind. They stopped coming after that. I don’t actively try to do any of it, it just happens. I think it’s kind of like how you can hold your own breath until you pass out, but then your body automatically starts breathing again. It’s a protective reflex.” He paused, and quietly added, “it only works for me though. I can’t- I’ve tried to help the others. The ones who had your room before you did, but- I couldn’t make it go. I couldn’t help anyone.”

Peter got up and cautiously sat down on the edge of Stiles’ bed and looked at him. He looked tired.

“The old man and the blonde woman were suspects in the fire,” he stated.

Stiles nodded.

“Would you recognize the woman again?”

Stiles nodded again, although more hesitantly this time.

“You’ve had your revenge, Stiles. I want mine. If I can teach you to control your magic, will you help me escape and find her?”

Stiles’ mouth hung open a little bit.

“How are you going to teach me to control my magic?” he asked suspiciously.

Peter smirked. “Like I said, I know quite a bit about magic. And what I don’t know, I’m sure the two of us can figure out together.”

Stiles considered briefly, and then nodded.

What did he have left to lose?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY SHERIFF. SORRY LAURA. YOU'RE COMPLEX CHARACTERS WITH A LOT TO GIVE BUT YOU HAD TO DIE. We can explore the depths of familial grief, guilt, and understandable yet terrible mistakes in another life. 
> 
> Anyway, look at that! Peter's gonna McGonagall his little Hermione! Magical education for the purposes of revenge murder, it's positively fucking heartwarming compared to the last chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> W A R N I N G: this chapter ends on, just, like, the RUDEST cliffhanger. It's awful. It's like you're hiking on a peaceful mountain, listening to the bumblebees, watching the flowers wave at you in the breeze, and then suddenly Paul Ryan appears out of nowhere and shoves you over the edge yelling "FREE MARKET HEALTHCARE WILL SAVE YOU" and you're left clinging to the roots of crowd source funding for all the hospital bills you're about to accrue from falling off a cliff. 
> 
> If I seem a lil bitter it's 'cause I am. 
> 
> Anyway the point it that if you want to avoid a cliffhanger, then you might want to wait to read this until I've posted the next chapter. The post date for the next chapter is approximately ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Peter paced up and down the short hallway as Stiles listened from his doorway.

“Your spark is just that: a spark of magic. Your belief is the tinder and the fuel. You just have to focus that belief.”

He passed Stiles, talking from over his shoulder now.

“From what I remember of what I read, it’s up to you how you do that. The writer of the journal I looked at used different minerals when she was young. She had ‘types’ of magic divided into categories, and she’d hold a different stone in her hand for each type.”

He passed Stiles again.

“As far as I can tell, the stones were a little like Dumbo’s feather. They did nothing to actually make the magic, but acted as a focus point for her belief. Eventually she didn’t need them anymore.”

He passed again.

“Our first step should be experimenting with exactly how and why your magic lashes out.”

He passed Stiles again, and then sharply turned around and shoved Stiles before yanking his hand back.

Stiles stumbled back. “What the fuck!”

Peter grimaced and shook his hand out. “Ouch.”

Stiles stared at him. “I repeat: what the fuck.”

“I need to know how strong your reactions are. Startling you seemed like the best way to not interfere with the results.” Peter was looking closely at his hand now. “Hm, no burn marks,” he said absently. “What we really need is somewhere to write down everything we learn.”

“Oh my god, are you always this much of a dick?” Stiles said as he retreated into his cell. He returned with a cheap spiral notebook and a pencil. He slapped them into Peter’s chest. “Start writing from the back forward. The front has notes from things that haven’t happened yet.”

Peter immediately flipped to the front. There were tabs on the side that said things like “Victoria BC Earthquake” and “Kennedy Election” and “Quadruplets-Chimbote, Peru”. Beside each tab there were notes squeezed in next to each other. Apparently one of the quadruplets was going to revolutionize wastewater treatment and another would be allergic to wheat. The BC earthquake and resulting tsunami would claim over 200 lives. The Kennedy campaign would be made difficult by leaked videos of him freebasing cocaine as an undergrad. Difficult, but not impossible.

“None of these things have happened yet?” he asked avidly. Stiles shrugged.

“I don’t think so. The visions for a specific event pick up pace for a while, and then they stop altogether. I assume they stop after they’ve happened.” He paused, and then continued. “The pace of the visions as the event approaches seems to correlate with the importance of the event. The last few days before Cyclone Nargis, I was basically comatose. After, though, I went back to normal. Well, normal for me.”

Peter was entranced with this, but he gathered himself and deliberately flipped to the back. They could fine tune knowledge of his foresight once they were out of here.

 _Wait._ Peter stopped for a moment. Stiles would only be helping him find the arsonist. He wouldn’t be obligated to stay with Peter after he’d had his revenge. He tried to shrug it off, but found it bothered him too much to let go. Unable to do that, he did the next best thing: pretended like he could.

“So,” he said in a businesslike voice, “we’ll say that a small physical inconvenience to you causes a painful discomfort to your attacker.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, but agreed.

Over the next few days they documented the effects of what little Peter could test directly and everything Stiles could remember of his experiences.

It was an unpleasant few days.

For Peter, because he was repeatedly electrocuted and the burning was far too close to the fire for him to be comfortable. Stiles, because he was repeatedly picking through the worst memories of his life. Perversely, he found that Peter’s presence was an anchor to the present for him. For the past seven years he’d struggled against losing himself to the memories of things that hadn’t happened. Now that he wanted to escape his own mind, Peter kept pulling him to the present with constant questions.

The only time they were interrupted was during the first mealtime after they began working.

Peter and Stiles had been standing in the doorway to Peter’s room, talking about casting theory for traditional witches and how it might apply to Stiles, when the door at the end of the hall disappeared. Two guards stood in the entrance, brought up short by seeing both of their prisoners casually lounging out of their cells.

After a moment of silence, one of the guards said sharply, “Stiles, you know you’re not supposed to unlock the other doors. The other people in here are dangerous, you know."

Stiles looked blankly at him. It seemed to unsettle the guard. While sometimes Stiles did have trouble staying fully in the present, Peter had no doubt that the spark was doing it purely for shits and giggles right now.

“Dangerous?” he asked.

“Yes, dangerous,” the guard said slowly. “He’s a feral alpha werewolf. He’ll try to bite you eventually.”

Stiles looked at Peter, and then back to the guard. “Bite?”

“Yes, bite, Stiles,” said the guard, a little impatiently now.

“He’ll try to hurt me?” said Stiles again.

“ _Yes,_ Stiles.”

“Like when you and Doctor Valack tried to knock me out so he could cut me open for your shitty experiments?”

Stiles no longer looked blank. He looked barbed and ready to go in for the kill.

Peter growled next to him, both to add more fear to the situation and because he was fundamentally _livid_ at the idea of someone trying to cut into Stiles.

“We- we’re just trying to help-” the other guard interjected.

Peter’s growling increased and he took a step forward. The two guards whipped out their guns.

“If you’re so bothered by us then maybe we’ll just stop bringing you food.” The first guard tried to sneer, but it was severely undercut by the shaking of his voice.

Stiles snorted. “Like you have any say in that decision. If the higher ups in here didn’t want us fed and healthy for whatever they have planned, then we’d already be starving. Look, if you don’t want to come all the way into the ward with the Big Scary Alpha, then just leave the food there and we’ll come get it after you’ve left.”

The first guard moved his eyes from Peter to Stiles. He looked at him hard. “The doctors here are lenient with you, Stiles, because of your fragile mental stability. We all know you have a… _loose_ touch with reality. If you’re feeling so much better, I’ll be sure to bring it up with them. Maybe it’s time for a change.”

He gave one last sneer, and they dropped the trays of food (beige goop this time; a healthy diet demands variety) and backed out.

Stiles looked at Peter, who was resheathing his fangs with a frown. Stiles rolled his eyes.

“They threaten that every so often. Usually it’s followed up by them putting a new lock on my door. It never makes a difference. Dinner?”

From then on, their meals were dropped at the end of the hall without interruption.

 

__________

 

After they’d written down everything they could, which really wasn’t much, they decided the next step was for Stiles to try to electrocute someone on purpose, without being goaded into it.

Unfortunately, Peter was still the only person around for Stiles to electrocute.

Fortunately, Stiles had thus far been unable to electrocute him on purpose.

Unfortunately again, this meant no progress in terms of controlling his spark.

“Come on, Stiles, focus-”

“I thought the whole point of this was for you _not_ to provoke me into electrocuting you?” Stiles said with his teeth gritted, running his hands through his hair and pacing around. “Telling me to focus doesn’t actually do anything for my focus.”

Stiles was trying. He really was. If he could learn to control this, he could leave, he could-

He could what? Get a job with a sketchy GED from a mental institution? Make hordes of friends with his years of social inexperience and tendency to zone out into nothing while he watched future events happen in his mind?

Stiles silently reprimanded himself. He _did_ want to get out. He’d figure it out once he was there. Once he was sure he wouldn’t hurt others by simply being in public, he would be able to work shit out.

But he was never going to be safe leaving if he couldn’t control his stupid spark. The harder he tried to focus, to grab onto it, the more his mind filled with buzzing nonsense. His thoughts darted around, okay, focus, hold still, like a statue, oh, remember that man with his bottom half trapped under a statue after the Victoria earthquake, shit did he write that down yet? When was the last time he wrote with a pen? He made a grocery list for his dad once before he-

“UGH.” Stiles stomped back into his room and started doing sit ups.

Peter sighed and leaned against the wall across from Stiles’ doorway.

Sometimes Stiles had an easier time concentrating when his body was tired. Peter thought idly that it explained why Stiles was still in good shape despite being locked in here for years.

He also thought that if he were a truly good person, he wouldn’t enjoy ogling a kid more than ten years his junior.

Luckily, Peter thought, he wasn’t a truly good person. He wasn’t even a passingly good person.

So he comfortably relaxed against the wall, watching the muscles move in Stiles’ back, and tried to think of how he could teach control of something he’d never experienced.

After a while, Stiles collapsed back on to the floor, sweat sticking to him while he breathed heavily. His mind was blissfully close to blank. He started humming quietly.

“Yo Dre, drop the verse,” he mumbled.

Peter’s mouth quirked up. “No Diggity?”

“No doubt.” Stiles sighed. “My mom listened to a lot of Top 40 when I was a kid. The lyrics always stuck to me like fly paper.” He smiled. “After I got caught singing ‘would she go down on you in a theater’ in kindergarten, she switched to radio edits.”

Peter hmm’d thoughtfully. “Alanis Morisette?”

Stiles nodded.

“You know she wrote that about Uncle Joey from Full House?”

Stiles tipped his head back to look at Peter. “No fucking way.”

“Yep.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles laughed. Relaxed, he started singing quietly to himself again.

“ _Shorty get down, good lord, Baby got ‘em open all over town…”_

He pushed himself up to sit on the ground with his back against the bed, looking out the door at Peter across the hallway.

_“I can’t get her out of my mind, think about the girl all the time”_

Peter stared back, watching Stiles’ mouth form the words.

_“I like the way you work it, no diggity, I got to bag it up”_

Stiles was calm. His mind felt slow, and he felt… safe. He beckoned Peter over with a finger.

_“She’s got class and style, street knowledge by the pound”_

Peter lazily walked up to Stiles, looking down at him intensely.

_“Baby never act wild, very low key on the profile”_

Stiles smiled slowly and wrapped a light hand around Peter’s ankle, sliding it up to his calf.

_“Catching feelings is a no, let me tell you how it goes”_

“Mother FUCKER,” Peter yelled as he jolted away.

“YES!” yelled Stiles as he jumped to his feet. “I DID IT!!” He did a little dance, singing _“Curve’s the words, spins the verbs, Lovers it curves so freak what you heard, oh!”_

“Yes, absolutely, take your time with Blackstreet, don’t worry about the man you just electrocuted,” said Peter sarcastically, bent over with his hands on his knees.

“You’re totally fine,” Stiles said, but he hurried over and put one hand on his back and another on his shoulder, helping him straighten up. Peter grimaced as he came upright, but Stiles wasn’t wrong. He would be fine in another minute. He grinned.

“You did it.”

Stiles grinned back. “I did it.”

Suddenly overcome with the desire to establish a more concrete claim on him, Peter leaned forward to rub his cheek on Stiles’, leaving his scent behind.

As he leaned back, Stiles scrunched his eyebrows together. “That was- did you just scent mark me?”

Peter raised his eyebrow. “You know what scenting is?”

“When I was fourteen, a beta werewolf stayed in your room. She wasn’t there for long, but I think she felt pretty protective of me. She used to scent me and call me her pack.”

Peter was unsurprised at how little he liked that- the idea of another wolf claiming Stiles as part of her pack. Peter’s wolfier side was becoming more and more adamant that Stiles was _his,_ and had been since the beginning.

He wasn’t an idiot; between the instant connection he’d felt with Stiles and the way they grounded each other, he knew there must be something supernatural going on there. He just wasn’t ready to find out what it was yet. His instincts regarding Stiles had been unusually loud, as if they wanted to climb over the backseat to take the wheel out of logic’s hands.

Well, _ça va_. What place did logic have when he was letting himself get electrocuted to teach control to a teenage spark so he could escape a supernatural nuthouse-cum-prison to commit revenge murder.

Instead, he allowed himself to lean forward again, scenting him more aggressively, so as to remove even the memory of another wolf touching his boy.

 

__________

 

That night Peter went to sleep in his cell, door wide open. When he awoke, it was closed and locked.

He immediately leapt to the door, pounding on it.

“Stiles?? STILES!” He couldn’t reach a full beta shift surrounded by mountain ash and whatever warding they had on the building, but he forced his claws out in panic and tried to dig into the wall around the lock. “STILES!”

Suddenly his door swung open and Stiles was running down the hall to meet him, clearly having just woken up himself.

“Are you alright? Did they do something to you?” Stiles asked, voice rough with sleep and worry. His hands came up to run over Peter’s shoulders and chest, as if checking for wounds.

“I don’t think so. I don’t feel anything.” He didn’t feel anything except that his ‘territory’ had been violated, anyway.

“Shit,” Stiles mumbled. _“Shit,”_ he repeated more fervently. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I couldn’t get to you,” said Peter a little helplessly. “I have to- you’re my pack, alright? I have to know you’re okay. _Are_ you okay? Did they do anything to you?"

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, yeah. They changed the lock again- like I said, it never makes any difference.”

“Okay. Okay,” Peter let out a sigh and grabbed Stiles into a hug. Peter held on to him tightly. Stiles froze for a moment, and then clung back just forcefully.

They stayed close in each other’s space all day. That night, Peter climbed into Stiles’ bed to sleep. Neither of them mentioned it. Peter was obviously still raw from that morning, and Stiles was completely onboard with the extra contact. The door had been such a tiny thing really, but Peter had grown complacent in the small amount of control that Stiles held over their situation.

It had been a reminder that they were still in the belly of captivity. That neither of them had come here willingly, and they would not willingly be let go.

The bed wasn’t quite big enough for the two of them, but they were determined to make it work. They wound up on their sides, Peter’s back to Stiles’ chest, with Peter between the door and Stiles.

“I hope you don’t think this means you get to be the little spoon all the time,” Stiles murmured against the back of Peter’s neck.

Peter huffed a laugh. “We can take turns, dear.”

“I’ll start a tally.”

Peter smiled into the darkness. They lay there in silence, quiet but not slumbering yet. Peter’s mind turned.

“Stiles, why can you control the locks?”

Peter felt Stiles shrug behind him.

“I mean, I’ve had a lot of time to think about about it, but obviously there’s no way to be sure. Maybe because the locks are related to my own safety. I’m fine being enclosed in Eichen House because it keeps me away from the public, but being locked inside my room feels like a threat. I’ve only ever unlocked the room across the hall for you, Lindy- the other werewolf- and a yeti who never told me his name. I couldn’t do it with anyone else in there, and most of them proved they were assholes before too long. The indiscriminate murder-y kind of asshole.”

He paused thoughtfully. “I think maybe I’ve felt threatened for so long that my magic has pulled itself back to just cover my own safety. Like, before I came here I used to sometimes just manifest things I needed. If I needed a stapler, one would show up on my desk. If I wanted a whisk, one would appear in my hand. The only time that’s happened in here is when I had a paper cut that got infected. The guards kept putting off bringing me neosporin, until one time I was poking at it and a tube just dropped down next to me.”

“That would make sense,” Peter said. “Conserving resources, so to speak.” He went silent for a moment before speaking again, even more quietly. “That would make your feeling of safety paramount to learning total control… which doesn’t seem likely to happen here.”

Stiles silently waited for Peter to finish.

“I’m not saying we should leave now. I’m just saying that there might come a point where you still don’t feel completely in control of your magic, but also unable to progress further without being in an environment that feels safer to you.”

Peter felt a tightness in his chest separate from his own. _Pack bond._ He wondered if Stiles felt it too.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Stiles murmured. They both fell quiet, and sleep found them soon after.

 

__________

 

One week in Eichen house was long enough for Peter to grow accustomed to Stiles’ foresight “quirks,” as they were. Two or three times a day, Stiles would stop in the middle of whatever was happening and hold still for anywhere from 30 seconds to ten minutes. If needed, he could usually talk to Peter. Stiles wasn’t in control of them; they came when they came and there was nothing he could do about it; but he had learned how to stay at least semi-aware of his surroundings. He didn’t fall as deeply into them anymore.

In their second week, Peter found out that only applied when Stiles was awake. If they came while he was sleep, Stiles was subject to every moment and nuance of the vision.

For the third time that week, Peter was jerked awake by Stiles kicking out and yelling in his sleep. He didn’t bother holding in his irritated huff. He knew it wouldn’t wake Stiles. Nothing did until the vision was over, and then he could rarely fall back asleep. Peter sat up, watching distress cross Stiles’ unconscious face. A bad one, then. They weren’t always. Stiles said he once had a few visions about an explosion in the bunny population of a town in India.

Stiles’ arm lashed out, about to punch Peter in the side, and he grabbed it. He held it tightly, and Stiles seemed to relax a little. With a considering look, Peter swung a leg up over both of Stiles’, weighing them down. His sleeper relaxed further. Finally, Peter flopped his whole body across Stiles, holding him down onto the bed. He snorted a little in his sleep, and then stopped moving all together without waking up.

Peter smugly closed his eyes and chased his own sleep.

When he woke up in the morning, Stiles inhaled a mouthful of hair and choked.

“Oh my god,” he coughed. “If you’re going to make me your mattress, you could at least be considerate of my need to _breathe.”_

“Sh, mattresses don’t talk,” Peter mumbled.

“I’ll show _you_ a mattress, asshole,” Stiles grumped lamely, but laid still underneath Peter, luxuriating in the warm weight.

Since his mom’s sickness, the only times Stiles hadn’t felt touch starved was when Lindy had been across the hall, and now. He was willing to do pretty much anything to make sure the touch stayed.

He was pretty sure Peter knew that too. As far as Stiles could tell, werewolves were all tactile, but Peter particularly seemed sensitive to that need. Or maybe he was just sensitive to Stiles.

In any case, Stiles didn’t think he even cared if this gift horse was full of Trojans, he still wasn’t going to look it in the mouth.

They lay there for a while longer, and then went to fetch their breakfasts from the end of the hall.

“I think we should try to get you to manifest an object today,” Peter said as they ate. “A weapon, since it’s related to your personal safety, and also terribly useful in encouraging others.” He twirled his spoon thoughtfully. “A gun or a knife, possibly.”

Stiles bobbed his head back and forth in a considering gesture while he chewed. “A knife, probably. I think I heard my dad give the gun safety lecture too many times as a kid.”

Peter nodded. “That’s fine. And then once you’ve managed to do that, we’ll see how you react under a perceived threat.”

Stiles stopped eating. “... Is that your way of telling me that you’re gonna attack me with a knife?”

“It’s my way of telling you that I’m going to make you _think_ I’m attacking you with a knife so that you can practice evaluating a threat quickly and reacting properly.”

Stiles felt sick. He pushed his tray away.

“I don’t like this.”

Peter looked up, surprised. “What? Why?”

“For this little exercise or whatever you want to call it, your safety relies on the idea that I won’t automatically overreact and kill you,” Stiles stood up, running his hand through his hair. “That’s my whole reason for being in here, is that I’m not sure I’m even capable of _not doing that.”_

Peter looked seriously up at Stiles. “You’re that worried about my safety?”

“Yes!” Stiles gestured widely with his hands. “We’re snuggling in the same bed every night, you know how I killed my father’s murderer, I played witness to your family’s death when I was ten; I think we’re there, alright? I think we’re to the point where I can worry about causing you harm.”

Peter was a little stunned. He knew that he felt protective of Stiles, but a part of him had assumed it was a one way street. He assumed his werewolf instincts would lead more to Peter’s bonding to Stiles than Stiles’ to Peter.

That appeared to not be the case.

“Okay,” he said slowly.  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, then.”

Stiles chewed his lip, but relaxed. He didn’t have to worry about accidentally killing Peter… he only had to worry about making a knife appear out of thin air.

 

__________

 

_“Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want-”_

“Spice Girls? Really?”

“Don’t fucking judge me, I’m getting comfortable. I need to feel comfortable to do magic.” Stiles wiggled his fingers. “I bet all four of the Spice Girls were related to sirens.”

“Celine Dion’s mother was a siren,” said Peter idly.

“No shit?”

“Celine was actually the worst singer of her 14 children; it’s why she was able to do it professionally instead of having to hide it. I can’t prove it, but I think the same is true for Freddie Mercury.”

Stiles was wandering around his cell, running a hand along the wall.

“How can you prove it with Celine Dion?” asked Stiles.

“I saw it in an astral projection.”

“Really?” Stiles asked, mouth hanging open.

“No you idiot, my mother knew her mother in Quebec in the 60’s,” Peter rolled his eyes.

“Well, how the hell am I going to know!” Stiles threw his hands in the air. “You turn into a canine, there was a guy in here once who regularly shed whole limbs and re-grew them just for kicks, and apparently I hold the power of the universe at my fingertips, but due to personal trauma I’m unable to access it unless I’m singing 90’s pop music!”

Peter sighed. “Get back to your zigazig ah.”

Stiles dramatically pointed a finger at him. “You want to act like you’re too good for it, but you _know the lyrics._ ”

Stiles continued to wander around his room. Personal safety, personal safety. Stiles was kind of amazed that he hadn’t already conjured some kind of weapon to make himself feel more secure.

_“If you want my future, forget my past”_

But he supposed with the electrocution thing, he kind of already was the weapon.

_“If you wanna get with me, better make it fast”_

And actually, Stiles was more likely to hurt himself with any kind of weapon. After all, weren’t you supposed to have training to use weapons?

_“Now don’t go wasting my precious time, get your act together we could be just fine”_

What he really should have conjured up as a kid here was a deck of cards or Hungry Hungry Hippos. Or a Gameboy.

_“I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want”_

Stiles felt his spark spread through his body in what was becoming a familiar feeling.

_“So tell me what you want, what you really really want”_

A sort of warm prickling, not altogether pleasant if he’s being honest. Felt sort of like hives.

_“I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna-”_

A baseball bat dropped into his hands.

_“I wanna really really really wanna zigazig-ah”_

Peter and Stiles stared at the bat.

“What is a ‘zigazig-ah’? Is that a sex thing?” Stiles asked, not looking away from the bat.

“Not unless you’re very kinky. That’s definitely not a weapon,” Peter pointed at the bat.

“I dunno.” Stiles hefted the bat up and took a swing. “Could be. I know more about using this to cause damage than I do about knives or guns.”

“Hm… do you think you could get something completely unrelated to safety?” asked Peter, taking the bat and running his hands over it.

“Like what?”

“Whatever you want. Food, a TV- if you really think ‘zigazig-ah’ is a sex thing, maybe you should conjure up some porn.” Peter paused, suddenly horrified. “Oh my god, Stiles, have you never had sex education?”

Stiles shrugged. “Probably nothing like what everyone else got in school, but I _was_ a ten year old with pretty much completely unsupervised access to our home computer for a while,” Stiles responded casually. He still had a very vivid memory of what untreated gonorrhea looked like. He supposed those visions of the Kim Kardashian sex tape counted as a kind of sex education too.

Stiles wasn’t sure if he was naturally shame free, or if shame simply ceased to exist in the face of so many other exhausting things. After all, who cares if someone across the hall hears you rubbing one out when you’ve spent the last four days having visions of what appears to be a genuine plague of locusts? Might as well take your pleasures where you can get them. Up until Peter had arrived, Stiles had just assumed he’d never have sex because he’d always be locked in here.

Now, though…

“Are you offering to educate me?” Stiles asked with a smirk.

Peter’s pupils dilated, but he stayed where he was. “Don’t tease the wild animal, darling.”

“It’s not teasing if you plan to follow thr-” His voice cut off and his eyes took on that particular hazy quality of seeing things no one else could.

Peter sighed. Precognition was a fucking cockblock.

“Peter,” Stiles said sharply. “PETER!”

“What? What is it?” Peter was instantly on high alert, moving to Stiles’ side. His hands scrambled, finding purchase on Peter’s arms and holding on tightly.

 _“Peter, Peter, Peter,”_ Stiles repeated, breath breaking on the words.

Peter hadn’t seen Stiles this agitated during a vision before. His fingers were digging so deeply into Peter’s arm that his nails were breaking the skin, the cuts not healing quickly due to the damned building. He tried to guide Stiles to the chair to sit down but he wouldn’t move, and Peter didn’t know if picking him up would hurt him in this state.

Suddenly Stiles gasped and focus snapped back into his eyes.

“They’re coming. For you.” His voice trembled. “They’re coming for you and they’re going to-”

Peter felt a change in the air pressure and his head snapped up. Someone had entered the ward.

He pulled Stiles, who was still scrambling to reassert himself in the present, behind him and hid both of them behind the door. He held the bat ready.

A cloud of gas entered the room before any guards. The yellow mist began filling the space, making Peter’s eyes water and his throat start to close up. He heard Stiles behind him, whispering “Air bubble air bubble, come on, please please please,” with desperation in his voice. Nothing was happening.

A gas masked person walked into the room, and Peter immediately lunged out, swinging the baseball bat with a resounding CRACK and immediately brought Gas Mask #1 down. Peter was coughing, doubled over when Gas Mask #2 entered the room, holding a canister of the yellow mist and spraying it in Peter’s face. He closed his eyes and turned his face away automatically, trying to avoid a direct hit.

Then his breathing started getting easier, which was exactly the opposite of what he’d expected.

He opened his eyes to see the mist being held at bay, away from his head. Stiles was still standing behind the door, face screwed up and furiously whispering _“I don’t want no scrubs, a scrub is a guy who can’t get no love from me”_ and Peter wanted so badly to laugh at the absurdity of it all and kiss this magnificent boy- but he wanted Stiles to not break his concentration even more.

Instead, he grinned and took a swing at Gas Mask #2, bringing him down with a spray of blood and brain matter. Peter took a step into the hallway to make sure it was clear, and Stiles screamed “NO-!”

Peter let out a little gust of air, and looked down. There was an I.V. stand sticking out of his chest. A third gas masked person was holding the other end, and trying to tug it back out of him.

The air bubble around Peter’s head vanished, and the yellow mist started closing in again as he collapsed to his knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fucking rude, right? Look, it was just the best place to stop. 
> 
> And listen, I know that everyone already knows that thing about Alanis Morisette and Uncle Joey, but it never fails to fucking blow my mind when I think about it. I always immediately picture Dave Coulier doing his Mr. Woodchuck voice while he's getting a BJ and indulging his exhibitionism kink. MR. WOODCHUCK IS WILD. 
> 
> Anyway, there are definitely parts of this that aren't really "good" but "good enough," but it's not like we're all here for professional quality, right? Right. We're here because we're a bunch of giant fuckin nerds. Also for the boning, we're here for that too. There's probably going to be a small amount of boning in the next chapter. Stiles is a hand wavy 17, so if that bothers you I'll make it easily skippable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am only 40% sure that this is anywhere near postable, and at least 30% sure I got too "essay"ish and preachy there in the middle, BUT I'm also only 20% sure that I like literally anything about the song I'm mixing for my final production assignment, so whatever everything is subjective and I'm tired.
> 
> PLEASE NOTICE THE CHANGE IN RATING. THERE'S A LIL HANDJOB HIDING IN HERE. IT'S NOT HIDING VERY WELL. IF YOU WANT TO SKIP IT, STOP READING JUST AFTER STILES TALKS ABOUT HIS FLOWERS AND START AGAIN WHEN IT SAYS "The first time Stiles went into public"

Stiles stood in the doorway, seeing again what he’d seen just moments before. The lines blurred- what was now and what was then? Were they one moment, collapsed?

His own chest felt as if it had been torn open. He stared at Peter, and he wasn’t sure if he was an extension of Peter’s body or if Peter was an extension of his.

Stiles’ magic demanded protection.

The yellow mist dropped out of the air just as Gas Mask #3 yanked the I.V. stand free. Stiles looked at them, and whoever was behind the mask fell to the floor, dead. It didn’t feel _vicious_ enough. What they’d done to Peter- Stiles wanted them to _suffer_ , but there wasn’t time.

He stepped back into the room and dipped a hand into one of the puddles of blood on the floor. Then he ran back to the hall and stooped down to Peter, giving a furious thought to stopping the bleeding, and the flow from his chest slowed. He managed to get him up with one of his arms across his shoulders, half carrying him down the hall. When they reached the door at the end, Stiles messily swiped his bloody hand over the door, making it disappear. He led them into an elevator on the other side, and it started moving upward without any indication from them.

Looking back, Stiles would think that the quiet 30 second ride was the most surreal event of his life.

When the door opened, an alarm was blaring. Stiles shut it down with an irritated look. Three guards came barrelling down the hall with guns; Stiles’ magic flung them all against a wall and held them there, only caring to get them out of his way. He continued half carrying, half pulling Peter down the hall toward the front doors.

It had been four years since Stiles had last been outside, but he barely noticed the change. He moved them to the parking lot as quickly as he could, opening the door of the first sedan he saw and helping Peter lay down in the back seat.

Guards and nurses were running out of Eichen House now, yelling and trying to cut them off. Stiles slid behind the wheel as his magic started the car, and then immediately remembered that he didn’t fucking _know how to drive._

“Peter-” he said, voice strangled.

“Left pedal brake, right pedal gas, move the stick behind the steering wheel until it’s in reverse,” Peter gritted out through pained breaths. He was beginning to heal now that he was outside, but it would be slow going until the wolfsbane was out of his system.

A nurse reached the car they were in and banged on the window, immediately getting flung back as if she’d touched a live wire. The rest of the staff rushed to her side.

Stiles fumbled with the controls and managed to get the car to jerk backwards out of the parking spot. With one or four taps to the surrounding cars, they were headed for the parking lot exit. Another five minutes and they were on the highway.

Fifteen minutes after that, Stiles pulled off the road he could not longer see due to a panic attack.

No no _no no,_ this wasn’t supposed to happen yet. He wasn’t ready. _They_ weren’t ready. Where were they going to go? Peter had passed out in the back, his body doing it’s best to heal the ragged hole in his chest after his true nature had been suppressed for over two weeks.

The person he’d killed came insistently to the front of his mind.

 _You wanted them dead. You wanted them to suffer,_ a voice in his mind said. _They probably had a family. You just did to their children what was done to you-_

“Stiles.”

Stiles couldn’t breathe, there was no air. _You’re a killer, you’re just like him,_ **_murderer._ **

“Stiles-”

**_Vengeful, savage, cruel._ **

“STILES!”

Stiles suddenly realized he was being tugged into the backseat by Peter. He didn’t have the strength to pull him there by himself yet, but Stiles went willingly and Peter gathered him as close as he could. Stiles immediately felt calmer with his touch.

“Do you feel that?” Peter said, voice strained with effort. “In your chest? That’s our pack bond. We’re pack. Closer than family, Stiles. I can feel what you feel, and you can feel what I can, so please, focus on that when I tell you: Whatever you’re thinking about yourself right now, Stiles, is bullshit.”

Stiles sobbed out a breath as he tried to hold himself together. They didn’t have time for this yet. They had to go- where the fuck were they going to go?

As if answering his thoughts, Peter said “My family used to have a cabin in the Sierra Nevadas, near Stanislaus. If you can get us to Sonora, I should be recovered enough by then to drive us up to the cabin.”

Stiles took several deep breaths, nodding. Peter swept a light kiss on his brow, and Stiles climbed back into the driver’s seat. He was still shaking minutely. Peter was angry at his inability to take care of Stiles, but he was already slipping back out of consciousness, his body demanding rest to recuperate.

Stiles glanced in the rearview mirror as he merged back onto the highway and saw that Peter had fainted again.

Okay.

He could do this.

 

__________

 

When Peter took over in Sonora, Stiles immediately fell asleep in the passenger seat. His exhaustion kept him asleep through the winding roads, all the way up past the snow line to the cabin. Instead of waking him up when they arrived, Peter left the car running with the heat on and headed up to the door.

He reached past the rain gutter and dug out the spare key. Once he was inside, the first thing he did was check the light switches, but the power must have been shut off. Probably a long time ago.

Seven years ago to be exact.

He shook away the memories threatening to creep up and got to work.

Out back, he was pleased to see the woodshed still full. He brought in several loads, with only a slight pulling sensation left in his chest from where he’d been gored. He sought out the smallest room with a fireplace and wound up in the master bedroom. Once a fire was going, he hurriedly shook out as many blankets as he could find, throwing them on the bed.

When Peter got back to the car, Stiles was still asleep. He picked him up out of the passenger seat and kicked the door closed. Stiles didn’t rouse until Peter lay him down on the cold, dusty bed.

“Pet’r?” he questioned sleepily. “We there?”

“Yes sweetheart, go back to sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

“We’re safe?”

“For now.”

“F’ now…”

“Sleep, sweetheart.”

“Don’ tell me wha’ to d-” his words were cut off by his own yawn. Giving up on being contrary, he rolled over and fell back asleep.

Peter gazed at him for a moment, and then went to stack more wood on the fire. He kneeled on the hearth for a moment. The last time he’d been here, Cora had lost two teeth on this fireplace when Derek jumped on her from behind. Talia had been so mad-

Peter got up and curled behind Stiles, clutching him to keep the ghosts at bay.

 

__________

 

The next morning, Peter found a couple cans of chili in the pantry that they heated up over the fire.

“We need food and clothes,” said Peter, businesslike. “There should be shoes and coats in the closet, but if we want things that fit, we’ll have to go into town.”

“Just get me whatever looks like it’ll fit,” Stiles said as he looked suspiciously into his can.

Peter looked at Stiles, surprised. Before he could even ask, Stiles cut him off with a curt “I haven’t learned control yet Peter.”

Peter’s lips pursed. The death yesterday appeared to have compounded the fears Stiles already had. He suddenly remembered Stiles’ panic attack right after they’d left Eichen. The blood loss made his memory fuzzy.

“We also need to get rid of that car, or at least the plates,” added Stiles, plowing on. “Money would probably be helpful too.”

Peter let go of the control issue for now. Once they were settled, they could come back to it. “There’s a few hundred in cash hidden in a kitchen cupboard. It should be enough to get us through until I can access one of my bank accounts," he said.

“I’ll need a computer and wifi eventually,” said Stiles. “The Beacon County Sheriff's department has a ten year holding policy on evidence. If the department’s kept up on data storage, then digital copies of my dad’s files will probably be gathering metaphorical dust on a cloud server. And oh god, we really need to get food, I can’t handle this.”

He placed the mostly full can of chili down. His taste buds didn’t know what to do with whatever was happening in his mouth. Stiles didn’t dare think about what the abrupt change in diet was going to do to his stomach later. “I want bread. I haven’t had bread since I was 15.”

“They used to give you regular food?” Peter said. “Why did they stop?”

“They stopped after I blinded that guy who watched me for a month. They stopped bringing me books after that too, but I’d already taken the tests to get my GED.”

“You have your GED?” Peter asked, surprised.

“Well, I don’t know if I actually have it. Somehow I doubt that Eichen House would have made it a priority to file my test scores with the state, but I definitely passed.” Stiles scooted closer to Peter and the fire, trying to soak up warmth from both sources. “It’s too bad getting the power turned on would be like shining a spotlight on our location for anyone looking for us," he sighed.

Peter hmm’d in agreement, slinging an arm around Stiles. “The cabin has some basic keep-away warding, but yes, even if we could get the power turned on it wouldn’t be terribly wise to give our information to a utility company.”

Shortly after that, Peter left to get the things they needed.

Stiles paced the whole 3 hours he was gone, anxious at the separation. He felt stretched thin. There was a pulling in his chest, where Peter had told him to feel for the pack bond yesterday. Stiles mentally reached out, trying to evaluate it. He poked and prodded curiously until he felt a shock of warmth bleed through him; something that felt like being held by Peter.

Huh. He didn’t remember feeling that with Lindy.

He held onto that feeling as he continued to pace. What if a cop noticed the plates on the car? Surely it had been reported stolen by now. What if a hunter found Peter? What if he was lying in an alley pumped full of wolfsbane? It was snowy outside, what if there was ice on the roads? What if werewolf reflexes weren’t good enough to handle black ice? WhatifWhatifWhatif-

The minute Peter stepped back through the cabin door, Stiles rushed him, needing contact. Peter seemed to feel the same way, judging by the way he immediately dropped his bags and hugged Stiles back.

“Jesus Stiles, I could feel you worrying all the way from Safeway,” Peter said, face muffled in Stiles’ hair. “You know you’d feel it from me if something were wrong?”

“No, I _don’t_ know that!” Stiles pulled back, looking up into Peter’s face. “What do you mean I’d feel it?”

Peter rubbed a hand over his face. This conversation needed to happen anyway. “Help me bring in the bags, and then we can talk about it.”

Ten minutes later they were seated on the hearth in front of the fire, back in the master bedroom while Stiles munched on a piece of bread with butter and looked expectantly at Peter. Peter decided blunt was the way to go.

“We’re mates.”

Stiles paused in his chewing.

“Somehow I don’t think you mean Australian type ‘mates’,” said Stiles, cheeks full.

Peter gave him an unamused look. “I don’t. What we have is more than a normal pack bond. I felt an unusually strong attachment to you from the minute we met. I was terribly interested in your welfare, considering that you were a snot-nosed brat-”

“Hey!”

“-who I hadn’t known existed until that day. It was like we already had a pack bond without even knowing each other. I think your company contributed to my clear headedness in Eichen House as well- I certainly didn’t feel that way in the hospital or just after becoming an Alpha. You’ve said I help keep you grounded in the present as well.” Peter looked to Stiles for agreement.

Stiles took another bite and and chewed thoughtfully. It was true, Peter had been the reason he hadn’t struggled as much with his visions recently as he had in the past. Peter was also a big part of the reason he felt safe these past few weeks. There was no reason for him to be that deeply invested after such a short amount of time unless something else was at play.

“I also can’t ignore that I want, to put it delicately, to fuck you into the ground,” Peter added casually.

Stiles choked on his bread. “That’s delicate??”

“Trust me,” Peter purred, “there are much more graphic ways I could describe what I want to do to you.”

Stiles snorted. “We’re coming back to that later,” he promised with a gleam in his eye. “But what exactly do you mean by ‘mates’? How is that different from just being attracted to or compatible with someone?”

“It’s not too different, actually,” Peter mused. “The term ‘mate’ basically refers to someone with whom you are exceptionally compatible on a supernatural level. What we experienced the first time we met, when you were a child, was the sparks in ourselves reaching out to each other. Nothing like romance or sexual tension; simply an encouragement to protect what might someday become something incredible. Now that we’ve gotten to know each other and you’re of age, the bond is responding to what we’ve provided it with. Namely, attraction.”

Stiles furrowed his brow. “ ‘Of age’? I couldn't exactly keep track of dates in there... I honestly don't know how close I am to 18.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Perhaps I should have framed it as maturity, then. Your 18th birthday doesn’t cite a magical threshold of being mature enough to enter a committed relationship. Magic doesn’t care about calendar dates. There are plenty of 18 year olds who aren’t yet capable of knowingly consenting and some 17 year olds who are. I’m not saying we should go get married immediately, I’m just trying to explain why our bond feels different than anything you might have felt with-” he curled his lip to sneer “- _Lindy._ ”

Stiles rolled his eyes at Peter’s attitude, but considered. He simply didn’t know enough about it to decide for sure whether Peter was full of shit or not, but it didn’t _feel_ like it. And, Stiles thought, did it really matter? Stiles had wanted to sleep with him before they even left Eichen house. Peter was gorgeous. Peter was devoted to his pack, of which Stiles was a part. Peter _cared_ for Stiles, and Stiles cared for him.

“I need books.”

Peter immediately understood. Stiles wasn’t struggling _against_ the concept; that was obvious through their bond. But Stiles still needed to see it in black and white, needed to see it from a source that wasn’t inside the affair, as it were.

“There were books on the subject in the Hale vault. We can get them when we go back to Beacon Hills to take care of Deaton,” Peter said.

Stiles’ gaze darkened. Deaton would have heard about their break out by now. Stiles wondered if he was afraid yet.

He hoped so.

Stiles hadn’t been lying when he said he didn’t regret killing the man who’d killed his father, and Deaton fell into the same category. Deaton wasn’t going to ever lock someone in Eichen again. Deaton would pay for what he’d done in full.

But.

Stiles hesitated. He wanted revenge for seven lost years. He wanted to protect others like himself from Deaton. But he also didn’t want his bloodthirstiness to endanger anyone else as he accomplished those things.  

“Which brings me to my next point,” Peter said as if he could read Stiles’ mind- hell, maybe he could. Stiles didn’t know jack shit about the whole mates thing. “You already have control over your spark.”

Stiles rolled his eyes as he finished his piece of bread. “You making a statement doesn’t make that statement true.”

Peter took Stiles’ hands and turned his body so that they were face to face, forcing Stiles to see how serious he was. “Just talk with me for a minute. Promise me you won’t leave until I’ve said everything I need to.”

“Where else am I going to go?” Stiles asked, gesturing around them.

“You locked me out once, do you honestly don’t think you could do it again?”

Stiles chilled as he remembered that first conversation that had preceded him kicking Peter out of his room, and suddenly he was unsure if he wanted to promise that he would stay for the whole thing.

“Please, Stiles,” Peter pleaded quietly.

Stiles took a deep breath and nodded.

“Ok.” Peter paused for a moment. “Stiles, who did you kill yesterday?”

Stiles immediately tried to jerk his hands out of Peter’s but he held on tight. The bread sat in his stomach like a rock.

“Stiles- please, just tell me: who did you kill yesterday?”

Tears bit at the back of Stiles’ eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know who it was, I don’t know anything about them, if they had kids or a spouse or a fucking cat waiting at home-”

“You know at least one thing about them,” Peter said seriously. “You know that they tried to kill me.”

Stiles stilled.

“You know that they didn’t just approach me with intent to kill, but nearly made it happen. That was their choice.”

Stiles shuddered with emotion, suppressed rage at the dead person warring with guilt over his actions.

“One more question: who didn’t you kill yesterday?” Peter asked quietly.

Stiles took a few quick breaths, trying to gain the composure to answer. “I didn’t- I didn’t kill anyone else.”

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t kill the other two people trying to gas us; I did that. Because they were approaching my pack with intent to harm, so I removed the threat. It doesn’t matter if they were only planning on taking me, that still would have hurt you, wouldn’t it?”

Stiles nodded shakily.

“But most importantly, you didn’t kill any of the guards or nurses on the upper level, Stiles. They were intent on stopping us. They were a direct threat to our safety, and you still didn’t kill them. You immobilized them and then moved on.” Peter paused and made sure Stiles was looking him in the eye. “If that’s not an example of control, then I don’t know what would be.”

Stiles felt the emotions of the last 48 hours finally overwhelm him. He leaned forward and buried his face in Peter’s neck as a few tears fought their way out of his control.

He cried. Not a lot. Years of emotional suppression don’t just disappear; but he cried into Peter. Peter nudged him up into the bed, and they curled around each other. Not sleeping, but taking comfort from one another.

There was sense in what Peter had said, and Stiles could feel his sincerity through the pack bond as he said it. Stiles didn’t completely believe it himself, but he could see how he at least might have a foundation from which to build control. He had a foundation he could use to protect himself and Peter, a foundation for control over his inner violence, and perhaps most importantly, a foundation on which he could build the consequences for Deaton and the blonde woman.

 

__________

 

Over the next few days, Stiles’ magic began to blossom.

“My magic is totally blossoming. Get it Peter? It’s _blossoming.”_ Stiles grinned as he pointed to the flower box that now held daffodils.

Peter sighed deeply from the couch where he was reading, but he barely held back a smile.

Stiles was finding it easier to use his magic, still with the aid of 90’s songs, but it seemed pretty hit or miss what he could make happen.

For instance, he’d somehow turned on the water and electricity without any output showing on the meter, but the electricity only went to the water heater and climate control. He couldn’t power on the oven or the lights.

Nature magic seemed to come a little more easily to him, thus the flowers.

“I don’t think you’re truly appreciating what a comedic genius I am,” Stiles said, hands on his hips. “I feel distinctly under-appreciated.”

“You poor dear,” Peter replied absently.

Stiles abandoned his flower box to fling himself down next to Peter on the couch. “What are you so invested in that you can’t even spare a pity laugh for me?”

Peter turned the cover of the book toward Stiles without taking his eyes off the page.

“ _The Captain’s Seaman_ ? Are you seriously reading a romance novel right now? With an even _worse_ joke in the title than the one I just made?” asked Stiles incredulously.

“Shh, Captain Abraham is about to take Ensign Toby back to his cabin to look at his ‘exquisite spyglass,'” said Peter.

Stiles popped his feet up into Peter’s lap, and Peter dropped a hand down to rub a thumb up the arch of his bare foot.

“Well then, by all means tell me how Captain Abraham is going to seduce the naïve ensign.” Stiles gestured for him to continue.

Peter cleared his throat. “ ‘ _Young Toby timidly closed the door behind him. His captain stood tall, holding his long, rigid tool. ‘Actually, a more accurate term for a spyglass is monocular_ -’”

“Are you kidding? He’s trying to seduce him by ‘well, actually’-ing him? Where are the dicks?”

“He’s trying to seduce the young, naïve seaman with his vast, wise knowledge,” contended Peter. “You can’t just jump right into the dicks.”

“Alright, yes, there has to be seduction before dicks, but you don’t seduce anyone by proving how ‘intellectually superior’ you are,” Stiles argued back.

“Then how would _you_ seduce someone?” Peter raised his eyebrow.

Stiles gestured wildly to the daffodils in the window box. “I was seducing you just now! Right over there! With flowers and puns!”

“Hm, clearly it was terribly effective,” Peter said with a slight smile. “I’m very seduced. Maybe I should show you my method of seduction?”

Stiles flapped a hand carelessly, belying the light blush on his cheeks. “I mean, if you really feel it’s necessary.”

Peter grinned and dropped his book on the floor, coming up to push Stiles flat on the couch and loom over him in one fluid motion. His mouth hung above Stiles’, their lips an inch apart, his eyes crinkling with mirth and mischief.

“Words are the beginning, long before the final seduction,” he said, voice low and quiet in deference to their closeness. “Words to entice, tempt, coax, and lure.” His lips ghosted over Stiles’ jawline. “Words made to feel like a caress. Words used to make intentions clear. Simple words like _‘want’_ and _‘please’_ and _‘yes’_.”

The tip of Peter’s nose brushed down the side of Stiles’ throat as he swallowed.

“... go on.”

Peter smirked, and lifted his weight up with one hand, putting a little space between them. “The words are the introduction, and the first touches are the prologue.” He traced the fingers of his other hand up Stiles’ ribs, touching so lightly it could have been a dream.

“Touch is a language just like words. Pressure for instance, is like inflection.” His hand started lightly at the hollow of Stiles’ throat; he brought it down over his chest and stomach, increasing the pressure as he went, until he reached Stiles' hip where Peter gripped him tightly. Stiles gasped a sharp breath and bucked into the touch.

When Peter suddenly released him, Stiles feel adrift- until the lightest of touches returned to his hip and drifted upwards this time, again increasing pressure until the hand reached his throat. Stiles stilled. Peter’s hand continued slowly up and closed around his neck, tight for the briefest flash before loosening. “See? Different inflection, different meaning.”

Stiles was so turned on he couldn’t think beyond a vague impression that the threat of a hand at his throat probably wasn’t supposed to be sexy, but _god,_ it _was_.

“And then, the part of yourself you use to do the touching also changes the meaning.” Peter’s fingertips continued gently traveling up his neck until they reached Stiles’ mouth. His thumb pressed against his bottom lip, and Stiles’ mouth parted, his tongue darting out to taste.

Peter’s eyes dilated as he watched. His head bent closer to Stiles as if magnetized, moving at the last minute to drag his lips along the same journey his hand had taken, starting on the throat and ending at Stiles’ bottom lip again. He lingered there for half a moment before giving in entirely and possessing Stiles’ mouth with his own.

The slide of lips and heat of his mouth was unlike anything Stiles could have guessed. Peter pressed his body down, trying to get closer, and it was consuming in a way Stiles had never supposed might exist. His higher thought processes had been swallowed up and only his ability to _feel_ was left.

Finally, Stiles had to turn his head away in a gasp for air, but Peter just moved his mouth down to Stiles’ neck. Stiles moaned, unrestrained, and dug his fingers into Peter’s hair to hold him there.

Peter was more than willing to stay where he was, licking and biting and sucking. The sharp sensation on his sensitive throat built up in Stiles, twisting him higher and higher.

Peter used the distraction to tease up Stiles’ shirt. His fingers scratched lightly up the skin of his ribs before sliding around to to grip his back and pull him closer. Stiles arched his spine, pressing into Peter’s body, and suddenly his own hands were scrambling to get under Peter’s shirt.

“Off, off, off,” he started chanting, shoving the shirt up to Peter’s chest. Peter sat up on Stiles’ thighs, dragging Stiles up with him and quickly rearranging him to straddle his lap. He tore his own shirt over his head and dropped it before pushing Stiles’ up as well, his lips following the shirt on it’s way off.

Stiles’ hands were running over Peter’s shoulders and arms as he ducked his head down to kiss Peter again, moving his lips from mouth to cheekbones to jaw. Peter’s hands went to Stiles’ hips, spasming into a clench when Stiles’ mouth found Peter’s ear.

Peter groaned as Stiles’ teeth grazed across the lobe, his breath ghosting over the curl of the helix, tongue brushing past the tragus.

Stiles’ hips began to rock down of their own accord, Peter’s grip encouraging the movement.

“Peter, I need- I need-” Stiles couldn’t find the words, he just _needed_.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” Peter replied, voice soothing. His hand reached for the button on Stiles’ jeans. “Is this alright?”

“I swear to god if your hand isn’t in my pants in the next _two seconds_ \- ah!”

The button popped off entirely, and before it could ping off the wall across the room Peter’s hand was inside Stiles’ boxers, gripping him solidly.

He jacked him slowly, but even so Stiles wasn’t going to last long. Peter brushed a thumb across the head, and Stiles panted, unable to understand why this felt so much _better_ than when he did it himself. Peter tightened and loosened his grip, brushed sharp nails along the underside vein, dipped down to cup his sac- each action made Stiles shiver with desire as he hurtled closer to the edge. 

The whines and gasps that he let out were so beautiful that Peter could only work to pull them out faster. He quickened the pace of his hand and reached the other up to grip the back of Stiles’ neck and pull him forward, capturing those sounds between them. 

It was only a moment later that Stiles let out a cry and came.

He still hadn’t come down from his high when his world tipped and he found himself lying back down on the couch, Peter kneeling and stripping his cock over Stiles’ stomach. Not wanting to miss his chance, Stiles brought his come-clumsy hands up to pull down Peter’s pants further off his hips so he could grip his ass.

The second Stiles’ fingertips brushed Peter’s crease, he tipped into orgasm, painting Stiles with stripes of come. Two beats later, he collapsed to the side, squished between Stiles and the back of the couch.

They lay there quietly, letting the haze of orgasm fuzz over everything. Stiles reached a hand up to Peter’s hair to run through it.

“Ten minutes from first kiss to first hand job,” he said lazily. “That’s probably some kind of record.”

Peter stopped breathing for a second, and then his body began to shake with silent laughter.

“Oh my god, that was your first kiss,” he said in amazement. He knew he probably shouldn’t be laughing- Stiles’ first kiss should have been a far different circumstance- but Stiles didn’t sound upset about it, and honestly it had been perfect for their relationship.

They lay quietly, curled up together, until Stiles started wondering if he could magic away the drying, itchy semen, at which point Peter dragged them both to the shower, because _no._

 

____________

 

The first time Stiles went into public, it was to use the computers in the public library to access his dad’s old case files. Stiles was so keyed up he felt like he might spontaneously start causing electrical shocks. What if he caused a blackout? Oh god, what if he burned out the computer he was using? _Fuck-_

“Calm down sweetheart, you’re doing marvelous,” Peter murmured behind Stiles’ ear. He was seated behind him, leaning over his shoulder. Stiles took a deep breath and pulled on the bond in his chest. He was starting to do it every time he worried, a little like a child who self-soothed by tugging on a blanket.

Better than an adult who self soothes with a bottle, he supposed.

Stiles continued working, feeling a fresh pang every time he saw scanned copies of documents with his father’s handwriting. He sorted through case after case, looking- there!

“That’s her,” Stiles said quietly.

It only took Peter a second to place her; really, there were only so many people in the world who could have done what was done. His list of suspects had been short, and the blonde woman had been near the top.

Kate Argent.

Peter began a subvocal growl, his eyes tinting red at the outer edges.

“Hey, hey,” Stiles took Peter’s face in both his hands, turning it away from the screen and toward him. “She’s going to pay. We’re going to _make_ her pay- but not in a county library. Alright? This is just a step toward giving her what she deserves. I’m going to look up some things, see if I can find out where she is, and then we’re going to go buy me some shoes because I can’t _believe_ you thought I was a size eight. Alright babe? Then we can go back to the cabin and maybe I’ll let you touch my naughty bits.” Stiles wiggled his eyebrows in the most obnoxious way possible.

Peter huffed. He buried his face in Stiles’ neck and took a deep breath. They would get her. They would get her, and he would make her feel every death she’d ever caused.

“Your naughty bits, huh? Like the elbow you threw in my side so you could get in the shower first this morning? That was pretty naughty,” Peter said teasingly.

“I mean, it’s not the naughty bit I was thinking of, but if that’s what you wanna go for-”

Peter laughed, squeezing his hands around Stiles’ waist. Stiles smirked and turned back around to the computer.

 

__________

 

Stiles had three window boxes full of spring flowers, the ability to channel electricity under very specific circumstances, and could manifest baseball bats and pillows from thin air (they’d found about the pillows when Stiles had a hard time getting comfortable one night, and then woke up with about 40 more pillows than they’d gone to sleep with.)

All things considered, Stiles thought he was doing okay.

“Okay” wasn’t really going to cut it in terms of safety while they had active plans for revenge murder.

Offensively, Stiles thought they were pretty well set between himself and Peter’s claws, but defensively? That’s why Stiles was currently standing outside, getting pelted with snowballs.

He was projecting a forcefield. Peter had laughed at the word, but honestly it was the only way Stiles could describe it. It was a solid wall of force to protect him from anything that might hurtle his way.

It worked perfectly, for exactly one snowball. The second snowball always sailed right through, pegging Stiles.

“I don’t get it!” Stiles wiped the snow off his face, exasperated. “I’m not changing anything! I can still _feel_ the shield holding up, but it’s like, it’s like- my magic just doesn’t care about the second snowball.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“Put it up again, I want to try something.” He bent down to scoop up some more snow for two new attacks, and sneakily packed a rock into the second snowball. “You ready?”

Stiles nodded.

The first snowball came barreling toward him and as always, smashed against his invisible shield. Without warning, Peter quickly threw the second one. This time, it smashed too, along with the rock inside cracking and falling to the ground in pieces.

“I think I figured it out,” Peter called as he walked over, both of them looking at the shattered rock. “Your magic is evaluating the initial threat: namely me, and the soft packed snow that’s not going to hurt you at all. So it doesn’t bother under the same threat again. If I throw something else that might actually hurt you, your magic continues to protect you. Hell, even if I were still throwing soft snowballs, but you didn’t trust me, I think your magic would still continue to work.”

Stiles considered this thoughtfully and looked up at Peter.

“You threw a fucking rock at me.” Stiles was unamused.

“I didn’t- it wasn’t going to hurt you! How else was I going to test my hypothesis!” Peter crossed his arms defensively, and them immediately changed his mind and grabbed Stiles into a hug.

“Shit, I threw a fucking rock at you,” he said to himself, chastised.

Stiles sighed, and then chuckled a little bit.

“I guess we can call it even for all those times I electrocuted you,” he said wryly, pulling back to look into Peter’s face.

Peter looked relieved, and ducked forward to kiss his mate.

“Do you think we’re ready?” Stiles asked as they headed back inside.

“I don’t think this is something you’re ever ‘ready’ for, it’s simply something that must be done, so you do it when it’s possible,” Peter replied seriously. “But, I do believe as soon as we know where they both are, it will be possible.”

 

__________

 

A week later, Stiles couldn’t fucking believe it.

She’d gotten caught on a red light camera.

In Beacon Hills.

At the intersection across from Deaton’s vet clinic.

Stiles sat with his mouth open, staring at the image on the library computer. Then-

**_“-what your mutt does to me?” she grinned through bloody teeth. “You can pick me apart piece by piece, and it still will have been worth it to put down those dogs. Nature made an entire species of angry, idiot animals that pretend to be like us, and I’ve been fixing-”_ **

Stiles snapped back into the present with a gasp. He noticed Peter crouched in front of him, book abandoned in the chair he’d been occupying while Stiles worked.

Stiles met his concerned gaze.

“I found her.”

 

__________

 

Deaton sat silently at his desk, trying to finish paperwork. His focus had slipped from his control more and more with every day that Hale and Stilinski weren’t caught, until he barely had it at all.

Stilinski, untrained and by himself was enough to worry about, but paired with Hale, who was possibly the only person in all of California who could teach Stilinski about his spark? Deaton was trying to prepare himself for the worst.

Which is why the moment he heard a noise outside his office door, he had mountain ash in one hand and a gun in the other.

“Hello, Dr. Deaton,” said a female voice.

“What do you want?” Deaton demanded in disbelief as she walked in.

“You stole something of mine, and I want it back,” she said, pointing her own gun at him. “What did you do with Peter Hale?”

Deaton could hardly believe he’d been preparing for an attack by a near-mythical spark and the intended left hand enforcer of the Hale pack, and here he was facing down the barrel of a foolish, power hungry nurse.

“Peter Hale was removed into the care of a more competent facility,” Deaton said smoothly, neglecting to mention that the more competent facility hadn’t been able to hold him either.

“Where is he?” the nurse snarled. “I didn’t spend all that time luring his damn niece back just for him to disappear before I got what I wanted. Where-” her voice cut off with a choke as an arrowhead appeared between her ribs. She looked down, shocked, and fell to the floor so that the rest of the arrow stood up from her back straight into the air.

“Tsk tsk, Deaton. No proximity wards? Just anyone could walk in here.”

Deaton looked up from the now dead long term care nurse to see Kate Argent sidle into his office with a bow slung on her back. She put a heeled foot onto the nurse’s body and yanked her arrow back out of the body. She inspected the arrowhead.

“Still good,” she remarked, pleased. “You’re welcome, by the way. I thought it was the least I could do to repay your help from all those years ago.”

Deaton’s eye twitched at the reminder.

“I did it to maintain the balance of fate, not to help you,” he said stiffly.

Argent shrugged as she walked up to his desk. “Either way, I appreciated the assist, and I always like to repay a good turn. Now that that’s taken care of, I don’t have to feel bad about what I’m going to do next.”

Faster than Deaton could process, she thrust the recently bloodied arrow through his shoulder and into the drywall behind him, pinning him like a butterfly. Deaton let out a scream, and Kate smiled.

“Where is Hale?” she asked casually, curiously eyeing the depth of the arrow through his shoulder.

Deaton grit his teeth, trying to breathe through the pain. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit,” she said. “You snagged him right after he killed his bitch of a niece, what were your plans? You have him hidden away somewhere?”

“I put him in Eichen House, he broke out.”

Argent scoffed. “No one _escapes_ Eichen House,” she said scathingly. “Especially not a brainless dog. They’ve had some of the country’s most powerful witches in there, people whose boots _you_ wouldn’t be fit to lick. He didn’t get out without help.”

“He did have help,” Deaton spit out. “But it wasn’t from me. He was imprisoned with a spark and they got out together.”

Kate’s eyes narrowed. “A spark?”

“A magic user-”

“I know what a spark is, idiot. Is this spark around… 17 years old?” she asked shrewdly.

Deaton started to nod, and then gasped as the movement pulled his shoulder against the arrow that held him pinned down.

“The sheriff’s kid?” Kate asked, just to be sure.

“Yes,” Deaton panted out against the pain.

Kate Argent grinned.

“Perfect. You’re going to help me out one more time, Deaton.”

 

__________

 

There was a strange sort of calmness surrounding Stiles. Peter could sense it. It wasn’t like dissociation or meditation, but more like a calm you feel before the last leg of a long trip. Stiles felt ready.

Peter, on the other hand, was having a hard time not snarling and keeping his claws in his hands. He eventually just let his claws out to try to relieve some of the tension he felt. He had to stay quiet, however, because he was trying to spy on the clinic while Stiles continued to get himself ready.

“Still just the one heartbeat inside?” asked Stiles.

“Yes.”

“Still think we should attack now?”

“Yes.”

“Even though we have no idea what could be waiting for us in there?”

“We know exactly what’s waiting for us in there: the world’s shittiest druid.”

Stiles glanced at the clock that said 4:02 a.m. and stuck his earbuds in. They’d picked up a cheap mp3 player on their way up to Beacon Hills and filled it with every 90’s chart hit that Stiles knew the lyrics to. Stiles would rely on Peter to keep track of suspicious noises, and he would focus on making the magic happen. And _no,_ Peter _, he wasn’t going to stop phrasing it that way._

They crept around to the back entrance. Peter pointed out a security camera to Stiles, indicating that Stiles should turn it off. A flick of his fingers, and the red light on the camera blinked out... before it fell off the building with a thunk. The heartbeat inside the building stuttered, and well, Peter hadn’t really planned for stealth anyway.

He rushed the door, slamming the lock open and took off in the direction of the heartbeat. Stiles was close on his heels, humming Smells Like Teen Spirit and thinking hard of a shield around them. Peter encountered another locked door and gave it the same treatment as the first, finding the source of the single heartbeat and stopping cold.

Kate Argent.

Deaton lay slumped over against the wall, congealed blood pooled around his body, dead eyes staring at the world.

Kate sat at Deaton’s desk, gun in hand and pointed at the door.

“Stiles Stilinski,” she said casually. “I have a… let’s call it a present, for you.” She nodded in the direction of Deaton’s corpse.

Stiles’ eyes narrowed, and he slowly removed a single earbud. He could hear Peter snarling.

“Obviously you know Deaton was responsible for putting you in Eichen House, but did you know he’s also the reason you father’s dead?”

“ _You’re_ the reason my dad’s dead,” Stiles said woodenly.

She shrugged. “My father was the one who killed him, I was just there for backup, and Deaton’s the one who told us-”

“Peter,” Stiles said, glancing in his direction, already done with Kate’s bullshit.

Peter, who had clearly just been waiting on Stiles, lunged over the desk, and the gun went off immediately. Stiles’ shield worked beautifully, absorbing the impact. The flattened bullet fell to the ground at the same time Peter crashed into Kate, knocking her out of the chair and pinning her to the ground, completely immobilizing her with the threat of claws at her throat.

She laughed, the sound of someone completely unhinged.

“That was beautiful. You must be even more powerful than I imagined. Stiles, I could teach you more, if we work together-”

“Peter,” Stiles prompted again, and Kate received a punch to the face.

She spat out a tooth. “You think I care what your mutt does to me?” she grinned through bloody teeth. “You can pick me apart piece by piece, and it still will have been worth it to put down those dogs. Nature made an entire species of angry, idiot animals that pretend to be like us, and I’ve been fixing nature’s mistake ever since. If you could just _see_ you would help me-”

Stiles considered what could be gained from trying to make her talk coherently. It was a short consideration.

“Peter?” He prompted his mate a final time, this time with a question in his tone, as if asking if he was ready.

Peter immediately ripped out her throat, and the mighty huntress died with a gurgle.

She sounded a little like a garbage disposal that needed to be run.

Stiles thought it was appropriate.

 

__________

 

It took them two hours to get clean and empty the Hale vault.

It took four hours to reach the Oregon border.

Another five to reach the Washington border.

A week to find a place to live on the edge of the Olympic National Forest.

Three months made the locals comfortable with their presence, and hikers terrified of their land.

One year later, Stiles knew all the words to Lady Gaga’s entire discography and probably could have brought the world to its knees with the power of his magic. He pretty much just used it to have the most bitchin garden in the tri-state area.

Peter didn’t feel the need to grow their pack just yet. Stiles’ visions had shown signs of it happening in the future, but for now… they were steady.

They were safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deaton lived a worm's life, and died a worm's death: as bait for bigger and better things. Not quite as violent as I thought it would be, but for me it was honestly more satisfying. 
> 
> Anyway, this shit is DONE. I can't believe I went from a child being neglected and driven insane by watching a family burn to death repeatedly all the way to "The Captain's Seaman". 
> 
> Also fyi I dropped in the lecturey thing about maturity and being "of age" because it's something that fucking bothers me a shit ton on a personal level, when people wanna act like 18 is some kind of magical threshold of maturity. I met my spouse when I was 17 and he was 22, when we were both at college, living in neighboring apartment complexes. What mattered was the fact that we were in the same position in life- both undergrad students, working part time jobs, I would edit his papers and he would give me a ride to the grocery store. What mattered was that we were equals. What didn't matter was the 3 months until my 18th birthday. We're rolling up to our 12th wedding anniversary this summer and I still love that nerd enough that I just listened to him explain that the song "Bandages" by Hot Hot Heat should actually be sung "Band of Jizz". God I love him. He's very wrong about the song, but I still love him. Band of Jizz, Jesus Christ.
> 
> Also lol "Better than an adult who self soothes with a bottle" she wrote, as she nursed a neat bourbon and avoided her responsibilities.


End file.
